TheAffaMe  Stranger 


PETER   MCARTHUR 


THE  AFFABLE   STRANGER 


THE 

AFFABLE  STRANGER 


BY 


PETER  McARTHUR 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

®bz  fitojji&e  prcjtf  Cambriboe 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,    I92O,    BY    PETER   MoARTHUR 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


PREFACE 

To  make  clear  the  purpose  of  this  book  and  to 
suggest  possibilities  to  the  reader  the  author 
offers  the  following  article  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Toronto  Globe.  Most  of  the  chap- 
ters first  appeared  in  the  same  journal. 

Ekfrid,  July  28.  —  This  morning  I  got  up 
feeling  singularly  cheerful  and  care-free.  And 
no  wonder.  Yesterday  I  got  even  with  the 
world  —  said  everything  I  wanted  to  say 
about  it  right  down  to  the  last  word.  This 
morning  I  feel  that  I  am  making  a  fresh  start 
with  all  scores  paid,  and  I  don't  care  whether 
school  keeps  or  not. 

The  explanation  of  this  unusual  state  of 
mind  is  quite  simple.  Yesterday  I  finished 
writing  a  book,  in  which  I  said  just  what  I 
wanted  to  say  —  said  what  I  have  been  ach- 
ing to  say  for  years  —  about  the  world  and 
things  in  general.  No  matter  what  happens  to 

602 


VI 


PREFACE 


the  book,  it  has  already  served  its  purpose.  It 
has  rid  my  mind  of  "the  perilous  stuff,  etc.," 
that  accumulated  during  the  war  and  since. 
And  the  result  has  been  so  refreshing  that  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  recommending  the  book 
cure  to  every  one.  Nowadays  any  one  can 
write  a  book,  and  most  every  one  does.  The 
mistake  is  in  regarding  the  book  as  a  literary 
venture.  What  you  should  do  is  to  make  a 
pad  of  paper  and  a  lead  pencil  your  father  con- 
fessor and  ease  your  mind  of  its  worries.  When 
the  book  is  done,  you  can  send  it  out  into  the 
wilderness  as  the  Israelites  sent  the  scapegoat 
—  bearing  your  sins  with  it.  Then  you  can 
make  a  fresh  start.  If  you  don't  want  to  pub- 
lish it  —  though  publication  seems  necessary 
to  complete  absolution  —  you  can  tie  a  stone 
to  it  and  throw  it  into  the  lake,  or  do  it  up  in  a 
parcel  and  leave  it  for  some  one  to  find,  just  as 
boys  used  to  do  with  neat  parcels  in  which 
they  placed  pebbles  on  which  they  had  rubbed 
their  warts  —  hoping  in  that  way  to  rid  them- 
selves of  warts.    I  know  there  are  some  old- 


PREFACE 


VII 


fashioned  people  who  will  be  shocked  at  this 
levity  in  speaking  of  books,  but  they  should 
waken  up  to  the  fact  that  since  the  coming  of 
the  wood-pulp  era  no  particular  merit  attaches 
to  writing  a  book.  And  if  books  can  be  given  a 
medicinal  value  to  take  the  place  of  their  old- 
time  literary  value,  why  should  n't  we  recog- 
nize the  fact  ?  Anyway,  the  writing  of  a  book 
put  me  in  the  frame  of  mind  to  parody  Sir 
Sidney  Smith  and  exclaim: 
"  Fate  cannot  harm  me,  I  have  had  my  say." 

I  have  told  all  this  merely  to  explain  the 
joyous  mood  induced  by  the  writing  of  the 
book.  Having  finished  my  task,  I  felt  not 
only  up-do-date  with  my  work,  but  up-to- 
date  with  life.  It  is  the  ambition  of  every  man 
—  whether  he  confesses  it  or  not  —  to  get 
even  with  the  world.  The  world  is  forever  de- 
feating us  and  defrauding  us  of  our  hopes.  So 
let  us  have  our  say  about  it,  turn  over  a  new 
leaf,  and  make  a  fresh  start.  When  I  got  up 
this  morning 


viii  PREFACE 

"I  moved  and  did  not  feel  my  limbs, 
I  was  so  light  —  almost 
I  felt  that  I  had  died  in  sleep 
And  was  a  blessed  ghost." 

There  was  no  feeling  of  responsibility  about 
anything,  and  I  could  go  to  work  in  a  care- 
free frame  of  mind.  That  made  me  realize  how 
care-free  all  nature  is,  and  how  care-free  life 
might  be  if  we  did  not  allow  ourselves  to  be- 
come so  much  entangled  with  its  affairs.  Just 
because  I  had  arranged  to  free  myself  from  all 
other  responsibilities  while  doing  my  task,  I 
suddenly  found  myself  free  from  responsibili- 
ties and  in  the  only  true  holiday  humor.  It  is 
true  there  was  work  to  do,  but  I  did  not  feel 
any  responsibility.  My  first  chore  was  to 
churn,  but  I  was  not  responsible  for  the  flavor 
and  texture  of  the  butter.  It  was  my  part  to 
make  the  barrel  churn  revolve  with  a  rhyth- 
mical "  plop !  plop !  plop ! "  and  when  the  butter 
came  I  had  nothing  more  to  do  with  it.  By 
that  time  the  heavy  dew  had  dried  from  the 
sheaves,  and  the  business  of  hauling  in  the 


PREFACE  ix 

wheat  was  commenced.  Though  I  had  an  in- 
terest in  the  wheat,  I  was  not  responsible  for 
it,  and  could  pitch  the  sheaves  without  worry- 
ing. The  mood  left  by  having  poured  all  my 
problems  into  a  book  was  apparently  the  same 
as  that  enjoyed  by  Kipling's  devil  when  he 
"blew  upon  his  nails,  for  his  heart  was  free 
from  care." 

Along  in  the  forenoon  a  thunderstorm  be- 
gan to  gather  in  the  west,  and  I  was  in  the 
right  mood  to  realize  what  a  care-free  and  ir- 
responsible storm  it  was.  Even  though  it  was 
harvest-time,  this  storm  was  not  obliged  to 
take  any  thought  about  what  it  was  doing.  It 
did  n't  have  to  pick  the  just  from  the  unjust 
and  distribute  the  rain  as  a  reward  —  or  pun- 
ishment. It  rained  on  both  alike.  Though  it 
was  such  a  care-free  storm,  I  confessed  to  a 
feeling  of  relief  when  I  saw  it  sheering  off  to 
the  south.  There  are  all  kinds  of  just  and  un- 
just men  living  down  that  way,  and  though 
they  may  not  have  wanted  rain  any  more  than 


x  PREFACE 

we  did,  it  was  no  part  of  my  business  to  worry 
about  them.  It  was  enough  for  us  to  gather  in 
our  own  crop  and  be  thankful  that,  after  all, 
the  Hessian  fly  had  left  us  a  crop  worth  gath- 
ering. 

When  the  storm  had  rumbled  away,  the  sun 
came  out,  and  it  was  certainly  a  care-free  sun. 
It  gave  its  stimulating  warmth  and  heat  to 
the  weeds  as  freely  as  to  the  crops.  If  man 
wanted  to  coddle  some  plants  for  his  own  use, 
the  sun  was  perfectly  willing  to  do  its  part  — 
but  it  did  its  part  just  as  freely  and  irresponsi- 
bly for  the  grass  and  the  weeds.  In  spite  of 
the  philosophers  and  teachers,  Nature  seemed 
very  irresponsible  to-day.  She  had  been  irre- 
sponsible in  sowing  her  seeds  and  in  promot- 
ing their  growth,  and  it  was  quite  evident  that 
she  would  be  equally  irresponsible  in  her  work 
of  harvesting.  The  free  and  irresponsible 
winds  would  blow  the  seeds  fitted  with  wings 
and  parachutes  to  every  point  of  the  compass 
and  let  them  fall  where  they  would.  The  free 
streams   would    carry   others   to   hospitable 


PREFACE  xi 

shores  or  would  leave  them  to  rot  in  the  lakes 
or  even  in  the  ocean.  Other  seeds  provided 
with  spines  and  hooks  would  cling  to  our  cloth- 
ing or  to  the  wool  of  the  sheep  and  in  that  way 
be  given  a  wholly  irresponsible  distribution. 
Nothing  in  Nature  seemed  to  be  burdened 
with  responsibility  or  care  or  remorse  or  worry 
or  ambition  or  any  of  the  things  with  which 
we  fret  our  lives.  Being  in  a  wholly  irresponsi- 
ble frame  of  mind,  I  could  not  help  wondering 
if  man  has  not  gone  woefully  astray  in  making 
himself  responsible  for  so  much.  Perhaps  we 
have  not  interpreted  properly  that  text  about 
being  our  brother's  keeper.  Certainly  our 
brothers  seldom  feel  grateful  to  us  when  we 
concern  ourselves  with  their  affairs  and  try  to 
make  them  realize  that  we  regard  ourselves  as 
their  keepers.  As  a  rule  they  resent  our  inter- 
ference, and  our  efforts  do  little  good  either  to 
them  or  to  us.  Perhaps  we  should  learn  some- 
thing from  the  irresponsibility  of  Nature  to 
guide  us  in  our  dealings  with  our  fellow-men. 
Any  one  who  cared  to  write  a  book  about  it 


xii  PREFACE 

could  probably  show  that  most  of  the  wars 
and  afflictions  that  have  come  on  the  world 
are  due  to  attempts  made  by  incompetent 
people  to  be  their  brothers'  keepers.  They 
start  great  wars  to  stop  little  ones,  cause  great 
evils  by  trying  to  remedy  little  ones,  and  other- 
wise make  nuisances  of  themselves  to  the 
limit  of  their  power.  Why  don't  these  people 
take  to  writing  books  instead  of  trying  to  set 
things  right?  Writing  the  books  would  free 
their  surcharged  spirits,  and  the  world  could 
go  its  way  without  bothering  to  read  what 
they  wrote.  The  more  I  think  of  it  the  more 
convinced  I  am  that  the  writing  of  books 
would  cure  a  lot  of  our  evils  —  chiefly  be- 
cause it  would  help  to  rid  the  people  who 
wrote  the  books  of  their  feeling  of  responsibil- 
ity for  other  people  and  their  affairs.  The  fact 
that  they  had  set  down  their  views  in  fair 
type  would  ease  their  consciences  and  enable 
them  to  go  about  the  ordinary  little  matters  of 
their  own  lives  in  a  care-free  way.  The  book 
cure  for  our  personal  and  collective  troubles  is 


PREFACE 


xin 


hereby  seriously  recommended.  And  it  is 
especially  recommended  to  any  one  wanting 
to  enjoy  a  holiday.  You  can't  enjoy  a  holiday 
if  you  are  worrying  about  your  business  in 
life.  So  write  a  book  about  it  and  get  even 
with  the  world.  Then  you  can  enjoy  a  holiday 
even  while  going  on  with  your  work. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Affable  Stranger  3 

II.  The  Elusive  Insult  13 

III.  Back  to  the  Primitive  23 

IV.  Grasping  the  Nettle  34 
V.  Registering  Reform  44 

VI.  The  Accused  54 

VII.  A  Burden  of  Farmers  64 

VIII.  A  World  Drama  75 

IX.  A  World  for  Sale  85 

X.  Organized  for  Profit  98 

XI.  A  Majority  will  be  saved  105 

XII.  Prince  Kropotkin's  Cow  117 

XIII.  Old  Home  Week  126 

XIV.  The  Ward  Leader  138 
XV.  The  New  Master  Word  145 

XVI.  Loyalty  153 

XVII.  The  Shivering  Texan  161 

XVIII.  Many  Inventions  171 

XIX.  An  Experiment  in  Modesty  179 


xvi  CONTENTS 

XX.  My  Private  Mahatma  186 

XXI.  The  Soul  of  Canada  195 

XXII.  A  Land  of  Upper  Berths  204 

XXIII.  Epilogue  213 


THE  AFFABLE   STRANGER 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

Oxe  day  a  group  of  Americans  talked  for 
publication  without  being  aware  of  the  fact. 
The  democratic  sociability  of  an  observation 
car  made  it  possible  for  me  to  get  expressions 
of  opinion  on  many  subjects  without  the  cau- 
tion and  frequent  insincerity  of  formal  inter- 
views. No  one  knew  the  name  or  occupation 
of  any  of  his  fellow-passengers,  and  the  con- 
versation had  "a  charter  large  as  the  wind." 
For  twelve  hours,  while  making  the  trip  from 
Montreal  to  Boston,  the  conversation  ebbed 
and  flowed  over  many  fields  of  human  interest, 
and  by  interjecting  a  remark  here  and  there  it 
was  possible  to  turn  the  talk  in  any  direction. 
Having  a  definite  purpose  in  view  and  plenty  of 
time  at  my  disposal,  I  managed  to  get  some 
spontaneous  expressions  of  opinion  along  the 
particular  line  in  which  I  am  interested  at  the 


4  THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

moment.  Before  leaving  Toronto  I  had  been 
assured  that  I  should  be  much  irritated  by  the 
egotism  of  Americans  regarding  the  winning  of 
the  war.  With  this  in  mind  I  resolved  to  take 
no  part  in  the  conversation  if  the  subject  came 
up  for  discussion,  but  to  listen  attentively. 

For  the  first  half-hour  we  travelled  mostly  in 
silence,  entering  the  items  of  our  expense  ac- 
counts in  notebooks  after  the  manner  of  trav- 
ellers, re-reading  letters  that  had  been  read 
hurriedly  before  boarding  the  train,  and  gen- 
erally putting  our  affairs  in  order  before  settling 
down  to  view  the  scenery  and  kill  time  on  the 
long  trip. 

Finally  the  ice  was  broken  by  a  breezy 
Westerner  who  had  just  made  the  trip  across 
Canada  from  Vancouver  to  Montreal.  He 
mentioned  casually  that  he  was  from  Seattle 
and  at  once  launched  on  a  eulogy  of  all  that 
he  had  seen  and  experienced  on  his  Canadian 
trip.  Here  was  just  what  I  was  looking  for, 
and  at  once  I  was  all  attention.  It  would  prob- 
ably have  caused  surprise  and  some  indigna- 


THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER  5 

tion  to  ardent  prohibitionists  if  they  could 
have  heard  the  traveller's  remarks. 

"The  Canadians  are  not  so  radical  as  we 
are.  They  do  things  in  a  more  reasonable 
way." 

Then  he  proceeded  to  dilate  with  exultant 
particularity  on  the  hospitality  he  had  en- 
joyed in  various  centres.  Good  Canadians  had 
not  only  given  him  much  stimulating  enter- 
tainment, but  they  had  even  seen  to  it  that  he 
was  supplied  with  liquid  refreshment  on  the 
trip  from  the  coast.  Only  in  Alberta  had  the 
aridity  been  at  all  noticeable,  and  he  attrib- 
uted his  misfortunes  in  this  respect  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  no  intimate  personal  friends  in 
Calgary  or  Edmonton  to  look  after  his  com- 
fort. I  gathered  from  his  talk  that  Canada 
is  far,  far  from  being  bone-dry.  While  he 
talked  there  was  a  hopeful  gleam  in  several 
eyes,  which  subsided  when  he  began  to  lament 
the  strict  watch  that  is  kept  on  the  border  and 
the  danger  of  carrying  a  supply  on  the  hip  or 
in  one's  baggage  when  entering  the  land  of  the 


6  THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

ex-free.  The  joy  had  passed  from  his  life 
when  he  had  left  Montreal.  Then  the  conver- 
sation became  general  and  raged  over  "the 
inhuman  dearth"  of  plausible  red  whiskey  un- 
der the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

Presently  the  breezy  Westerner  began  to 
speak  of  his  fellow-passengers  on  the  Canadian 
trip.  From  Vancouver  to  Calgary  he  had  as- 
sociated mostly  with  two  Canadian  officers. 
Here,  I  thought  to  myself,  is  where  I  need  to 
get  a  grip  on  my  emotions,  so  I  camouflaged 
myself  behind  a  morning  paper  and  pretended 
to  read.  But  the  precaution  proved  unneces- 
sary. He  showed  an  almost  pathetic  pride  in 
telling  his  fellow-countrymen  that  those  offi- 
cers had  told  him  that  the  Yankees  were  more 
like  the  Canadians  than  any  other  soldiers 
they  had  met  in  Europe.  They  had  the  same 
initiative,  resourcefulness,  and  courage.  This 
was  received  with  approval,  for  all  in  the  little 
group  were  willing  to  concede  that  there  was  no 
question  about  the  war  record  of  the  Canadi- 
ans. To  my  surprise  no  mention  was  made  of 


THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER  7 

the  fact  that  the  Americans  really  won  the 
war — which  leads  me  to  suspect  that  the  con- 
viction is  not  so  general  among  the  plain  peo- 
ple as  I  had  been  led  to  suppose.  It  is  true 
that  certain  spread-eagle  papers  have  rather 
too  much  to  say  on  the  subject,  and  it  is  possi- 
ble that  some  Americans  like  to  get  a  rise  out 
of  visiting  Canadians  by  assuming  a  patroniz- 
ing attitude  regarding  the  war,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  during  the  whole  day  I  did  not 
hear  any  boasting  on  this  point.  The  only  re- 
mark that  might  have  given  offence  was  made 
by  a  lean,  sallow  New  Englander.  The  talk 
had  turned  to  the  Peace  Treaty  and  all  were 
at  once  united  in  a  common  sorrow  over  the 
part  that  President  Wilson  had  played  in 
Europe.  From  which  I  gathered  that  all  those 
present  were  Republicans,  for  not  a  word  was 
said  in  the  President's  defence.  The  lean  New 
Englander  finally  grumbled : 

"Well,  I  think  England  got  a  good  deal  out 
of  the  war  at  our  expense." 

But  he  got  no  further.    The  Westerner 


8  THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

swept  over  him  with  a  tornado  of  words.  If 
anything  of  that  kind  had  occurred  —  which 
he  did  not  admit  —  it  must  be  overlooked. 
The  hope  of  the  world  lies  in  the  continued 
friendship  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  Germany  is  far  from  being  down  and 
out  and  may  even  now  be  plotting  against  the 
peace  of  the  world.  There  are  dire  possibilities 
in  Asia  that  may  involve  both  Britain  and  the 
United  States. 

When  the  New  Englander  got  a  hearing 
again,  it  was  very  evident  that  he  had  seen  a 
light.  Probably  he  suspected  that  there  might 
be  a  British  subject  in  the  little  chance  assem- 
bled group,  for  he  began  to  lay  on  the  soft 
sawder  in  a  way  that  would  have  done  credit 
to  Sam  Slick.  The  only  British  people  of 
which  he  had  personal  knowledge  were  the 
Canadians,  as  his  business  took  him  to  Canada 
for  several  weeks  every  year.  He  could  not 
speak  too  highly  of  their  courtesy  and  business 
probity.  What  he  had  in  mind  when  he  made 
the  offending  remark  was  that  making  a  Peace 


THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER  9 

Treaty  was  much  like  a  "hoss-trade,"  and 
that  as  a  "hoss-trader"  Wilson  had  no  show 
with  crafty  diplomats  like  Lloyd  George,  Bal- 
four, Clemenceau,  and  the  others  he  had  met. 
As  my  interest  was  centred  in  that  part  of 
the  conversation  which  dealt  with  the  attitude 
of  the  plain  people  of  the  United  States  to- 
ward the  plain  people  of  Canada  and  the  Brit- 
ish Empire,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  report  the 
wide  range  of  knowledge  that  came  to  the  sur- 
face during  the  day.  I  may  say,  however,  that 
I  learned  with  interest  that  New  York  has 
the  highest  buildings  in  the  world,  Seattle  the 
finest  docks  in  the  world,  the  United  States 
the  greatest  military  possibilities  of  any  na- 
tion in  the  world,  and  that  the  Merrimac 
River  turns  more  spindles  than  any  other  river 
in  the  world.  I  suspect  it  would  be  possible 
to  write  a  book  about  the  greatest  things  in  the 
world  likely  to  be  heard  of  on  this  trip,  but 
I  am  not  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  it  was  not 
the  people  of  the  United  States  that  Rudyard 
Kipling  had  in  mind  when  he  wrote : 


io         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

"For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word, 
Thy  mercy  on  thy  people,  Lord ! " 

In  the  afternoon  I  deserted  the  observation 
car  and  went  visiting  in  the  day  coach  among 
the  passengers  who  were  taking  short  trips 
between  the  intermediate  stations.  In  this 
way  I  got  an  unconscious  compliment  that 
cheered  me  wonderfully.  An  exchange  of  news- 
papers with  the  man  with  whom  a  seat  was 
shared  gave  an  opening  for  conversation. 
Sticking  to  my  resolution  I  did  not  introduce 
the  subject  of  the  war.  We  talked  of  the  news 
of  the  day  and  all  sorts  of  subjects.  Suddenly 
my  seat-mate  gave  me  a  searching  look  and 
asked: 

"You  are  a  farmer,  are  you  not?" 

He  will  never  know  how  flattered  I  was. 
Being  so  far  from  home  I  felt  that  I  could 
admit  my  nearness  to  the  soil  without  being 
scoffed  at.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  some 
matters  Americans  are  much  more  discerning 
than  Canadians  —  but  let  that  pass. 

We  talked  of  the  late  spring,  crop  prospects, 


THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER         n 

the  high  cost  of  living,  and  such  things,  and  at 
last  my  patience  was  rewarded.  In  a  dreary 
tone  he  said : 

"  It  seems  as  if  people  would  never  get  set- 
tled down  after  the  war." 

I  encouraged  him  with  a  nod. 

"The  war  upset  everything.  Labor  was  un- 
settled by  high  wages.  The  country  boys  that 
went  into  the  army  got  a  taste  of  city  life  and 
life  in  crowds,  and  it  looks  as  if  they  would 
never  stay  on  the  land  any  more." 

I  let  him  ramble  on  about  the  train  of  evils 
that  had  followed  the  war.  There  was  no 
boasting  —  just  a  sense  of  weariness  with  it 
all. 

On  my  arrival  in  Boston  I  became  practi- 
cally incomunicado  and  unable  to  play  my 
role  of  the  affable  stranger  who  is  willing  to 
engage  in  conversation  with  any  one  who  is 
willing  to  talk.  It  was  impossible  to  get  ac- 
commodations at  the  hotel  to  which  I  had 
telegraphed  for  a  room.  They  had  more  reser- 
vations than  they  could  handle  for  three  weeks 


12         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

ahead.  But  if  I  wished,  the  courteous  clerk 
might  be  able  to  arrange  for  me  at  another 
hotel.  As  it  was  after  ten  o'clock,  I  wished. 
By  using  the  telephone  he  located  a  room  for 
me  in  a  quiet  family  hotel.  Its  tone  and  ex- 
clusiveness  impressed  me  as  soon  as  I  regis- 
tered. I  was  in  a  position  to  see  Boston  on  its 
dignity.  The  elevator  man  looked  like  a  sad 
professor  of  political  economy  in  reduced  cir- 
cumstances, and  as  I  stepped  into  his  cage 
I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  turned  over  to  the  final 
psychopomp.  With  this  in  mind  it  gave  me 
a  thrill  of  pleasure  to  note,  like  Phil  Welch, 
that  the  elevator  was  going  up  and  not  down. 
No  one  at  this  hotel  spoke  to  another  without 
an  introduction,  and  I  realized  that  I  was  hav- 
ing a  chance  to  get  a  glimpse  of  that  sternly 
exclusive  New  England : 

"Where  the  Cabots  speak  only  to  Lowells, 
And  the  Lowells  speak  only  to  God." 

But  a  few  hours  later  I  was  mingling  with 
the  ordinary  throng  again,  looking  for  infor- 
mation. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  ELUSIVE  INSULT 

When  a  man  starts  on  a  journey  he  usually 
makes  a  plan  before  starting.  He  will  go  to 
this  place  or  that  at  such  a  time  or  times:  He 
will  meet  this  man  and  that  —  and  will  say  to 
them  thus  and  so.  If  he  is  a  man  of  trained 
habits  —  say  a  commercial  traveller  for  an 
exacting  firm  —  he  will  carry  out  his  plans  — 
or  lie  about  them  in  his  report  to  the  home 
office.  As  my  report  is  to  be  made  to  the  pub- 
lic there  is  no  need  of  lying.  I  have  promised 
nothing  and  nothing  is  expected.  My  plans 
went  all  awry  before  I  was  in  the  United 
States  two  days.  But  what  of  that?  I  may  not 
find  the  information  I  was  after,  but  I  am  find- 
ing things  that  are  interesting  and  amusing,  so 
let  us  carry  on.  But  first  a  word  about  those 
plans  —  for  what  happened  to  them  was 
rather  illuminating.    It  seems  to  cast  a  light 


i4         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

on  the  law  of  acceleration  that  I  hear  about 
sometimes. 

It  has  been  my  experience  that  a  mere 
observer — "a  looker-on  here  in  Vienna"  — 
seldom  arrives  at  the  truth  about  anything. 
He  sees  only  the  outside  of  things.  It  is  when 
one  is  actually  doing  things  that  he  learns 
about  them.  With  this  in  mind  I  deferred 
taking  the  present  trip  for  many  months. 
Not  wishing  to  come  as  a  holiday  onlooker  I 
waited  until  actual  business  made  it  necessary 
for  me  to  come.  This  business  would  make  it 
necessary  for  me  to  have  dealings  with  men  in 
various  cities,  and  in  order  to  transact  it  I 
would  be  obliged  to  keep  step  with  that  part  of 
the  business  world  in  which  I  found  it  nec- 
essary to  move.  I  would  find  the  chance  com- 
ments of  business  conversation  more  enlight- 
ening than  any  formal  interviews,  for  they 
would  rise  spontaneously  from  the  soul  of 
things.  With  all  this  carefully  thought  out  I 
started  on  my  trip. 

WTien  I  left  the  farm  my  plans  were  vague 


THE  ELUSIVE  INSULT  15 

and  leisurely.  I  had  business  to  transact,  but 
it  was  not  urgent.  It  could  wait  on  my  con- 
venience and  on  the  convenience  of  others.  It 
was  little  more  than  a  good  excuse  for  meeting 
business  men  in  their  offices  so  that  I  could 
glimpse  what  they  were  thinking  about  when 
off  their  guard. 

When  I  reached  Toronto  I  found  that  it 
would  be  necessary  for  me  to  make  my  plans 
more  definite  and  to  speed  up  to  a  regular 
schedule.  There  seemed  to  be  more  in  the  busi- 
ness than  I  thought  and  it  would  be  well  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  So  I  reformed  my  plans 
and  prepared  to  step  lively  wherever  neces- 
sary. 

In  Boston  I  was  startled  to  find  that  further 
changes  in  my  plans  were  advisable.  The 
business  looked  better  than  ever,  but  if  I  was 
to  transact  it  and  keep  step  with  the  march  of 
things  I  must  exert  myself  and  move  fully 
three  times  as  fast  as  had  been  planned  before 
leaving  Toronto.  This  would  wipe  out  the 
holiday  aspect  of  my  trip,  but  it  would  give  me 


1 6         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

a  more  intimate  view  of  the  business  life  of  the 
American  people.  I  decided  to  rise  to  the  occa- 
sion. 

Then  I  went  to  New  York  and  what  hap- 
pened to  me  and  my  plans  may  be  indicated 
by  my  first  experience  in  the  city.  Knowing 
that  an  old  friend  was  located  at  a  certain 
address  on  lower  Broadway  I  decided  to  call 
on  him  before  doing  anything  else.  I  found  a 
real  sky-scraper  at  the  address  sought.  Look- 
ing up  his  address  in  the  office  directory  I 
found  that  his  room  number  was  3224.  Being 
accustomed  to  office  buildings  and  hotels 
where  the  rooms  are  numbered  with  the  first 
figure  indicating  the  floor  on  which  the  room 
is  located,  I  expected  to  find  my  friend  on  the 
third  floor.  Stepping  in  the  elevator  I  asked 
for  room  3224,  and  was  promptly  whirled  to 
the  thirty-second  floor.  My  guess  at  the  loca- 
tion had  been  multiplied  by  ten.  And  I  soon 
found  that  this  kind  of  multiplication  touched 
everything.  If  Boston  made  me  move  three 
times  as  fast  as  Toronto,  New  York  would 


THE  ELUSIVE  INSULT  17 

make  me  move  ten  times  as  fast  and  far  as 
Boston.  Right  there  my  plans  went  glimmer- 
ing. Like  Huck  Finn,  "  I  lost  all  holts."  I  was 
willing  to  forego  a  holiday,  but  I  did  not  pro- 
pose to  invite  apoplexy.  Since  then  I  have 
been  doing  business  in  a  catch-as-catch-can 
way  —  and  getting  information  and  impres- 
sions in  the  same  way.  And  what  I  am  getting 
I  shall  pass  on  just  as  I  get  it  —  without  plan 
or  too  much  order.  The  impossibility  of  keep- 
ing step  with  New  York  without  a  long  previ- 
ous training  has  compelled  me  to  give  up  the 
attempt  and  has  restored  me  to  the  holiday 
humor  I  was  in  when  leaving  the  farm.  So 
now  we  can  step  lightly  again. 

One  day  many  years  ago  I  happened  to  be 
with  the  late  "Billy"  Garrison,  whose  memory 
still  lingers  in  New  York  newspaper  life.  A 
bewildered  individual  approached  and  asked 
Garrison: 

"Are  you  a  Scotchman?" 

"No,"  said  the  wit,  "but  if  you  wait  a  min- 
ute I  think  I  can  find  you  one." 


1 8         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

That  swift  absurdity  epitomizes  New  York. 
If  you  want  a  man  of  any  nationality  or  from 
any  place,  you  can  find  him  in  a  minute  or  two 
if  you  care  to  search.  In  trying  to  get  in  touch 
with  the  United  States,  or  even  the  whole 
world,  it  is  not  necessary  to  leave  Manhattan 
Island.  But  I  was  not  searching.  I  was  wait- 
ing for  mine  own  to  come  to  me.  In  this  care- 
free and  receptive  mood  I  met  men  from  many 
States  of  the  Union  and  from  many  walks  of 
life.  Some  I  met  as  old  friends,  some  in  the 
way  of  business,  and  some  by  the  simple  expe- 
dient of  borrowing  a  match  in  a  smoking-car  or 
hotel  lobby.  As  none  suspected  any  motive 
beyond  what  appeared  on  the  surface,  they 
talked  copiously  if  not  always  entertainingly. 
And  I  soon  discovered  the  astounding  fact  that 
if  my  patriotic  sentiments  were  to  be  out- 
raged I  must  pave  the  way  for  the  insult  my- 
self. The  war  and  international  relations  never 
cropped  up.  Of  course  the  Americans  lack  the 
irritant  of  the  adverse  exchange  which  touches 
Canadian  business  life  at  many  points  every 


THE  ELUSIVE  INSULT  19 

day  and  arouses  wrath.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  exchange  gives  their  dealings  with  Canada 
and  Great  Britain  an  added  zest  and  tends  to 
make  them  take  a  placid  view  of  the  interna- 
tional situation.  That  in  itself  is  enough  to  in- 
crease the  irritation  of  a  Canadian,  but  I  could 
hardly  make  it  a  cause  of  argument,  for 
exchange  is  a  subject  that  I  do  not  feel  that 
I  understand  except  in  moments  of  exalted 
financial  meditation  such  as  seldom  come  to 
me.  While  I  might  feel  sore  about  having  my 
Canadian  money  discounted,  the  Americans 
were  not  sore  at  all.  Indeed,  they  went  farther 
and  were  unfailing  in  their  sympathy.  That 
hurt  a  little,  but  I  could  hardly  treat  it  as  an 
insult. 

Still  I  was  not  without  my  moments  of 
insight  and  amusement.  I  found  that  my 
friends  and  chance  acquaintances,  like  those 
who  talked  in  the  parlor  car,  had  one  great 
grievance  in  common  —  the  activities  of  agi- 
tators, Bolshevists,  I.W.W.'s  and  all  who  are 
attacking  American  institutions.  This  touches 


20         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

them  more  nearly  than  international  relations 
or  any  criticisms  that  come  from  abroad.  And 
all  of  them  dealt  with  the  trouble  in  the  same 
strain.  They  are  not  afraid  of  these  wild  men 
or  of  their  wild  ideas.  But  they  are  hurt  and 
humiliated  to  find  that  people  exist,  especially 
within  the  borders  of  the  United  States,  who 
believe  the  kind  of  nonsense  that  these  people 
talk.  Real  Americans  feel  disgraced  that  news 
of  that  sort  of  discontent  should  be  going  out 
to  the  world.  The  attitude  seems  to  be  one  of 
shame  and  indignation  rather  than  of  fear  or 
anger.  They  were  hurt  to  find  that  any  one  — 
especially  any  one  who  had  come  to  America 
to  live  —  could  fail  to  see  the  manifold  advan- 
tages of  living  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  No 
one  was  afraid  that  the  radicals  could  accom- 
plish their  ends  —  they  were  simply  a  noisy, 
irrational  minority  —  but  it  was  an  insult  to 
every  American  to  have  these  people  denying 
that  the  United  States  is  the  finest  country  in 
the  world.  It  seemed  incredible,  stupefying. 
The  man  from  Seattle  on  the  observation 


THE  ELUSIVE  INSULT  21 

car  was  able  to  give  first-hand  information 
about  the  I.W.W.  and  he  proceeded  to  do  so 
volubly  and  emphatically.  He  pinned  his 
faith  to  the  chastening  influence  of  an  accu- 
rately applied  bludgeon  in  dealing  with  this 
element  of  society,  and  told  with  relish  of  how 
I.W.W.  leaders  were  beaten  up  whenever  they 
tried  to  start  something.  He  established  his 
claim  to  being  a  true  American  by  stating  that 
although  living  in  the  West  he  was  born  in 
Boston  and  was  descended  from  one  of  the 
seven  men  who  had  established  the  town  of 
Salem.  He  was  all  for  direct  action  in  dealing 
with  the  advocates  of  direct  action. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that  the  unrest  is 
rousing  American  citizens  to  a  keener  sense  of 
their  heritage  as  descendants  of  the  men  who 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  country,  and  they 
are  inclined  to  be  intolerant  of  any  one  who 
questions  the  soundness  and  essential  Tight- 
ness of  American  institutions.  They  have  no 
patience  with  those  who  would  overturn  their 
system  of  government.   The  result  will  prob- 


22         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

ably  be  a  livelier  sense  of  citizenship  on  the 
part  of  many  who  have  been  neglectful  of  their 
duties  in  the  matter.  They  will  not  leave  the 
conduct  of  affairs  to  those  who  cater  to  the 
forces  of  disruption.  They  are  all  for  the 
America  of  their  fathers,  and  this  unrest  will 
probably  cause  a  rebirth  of  the  old-fashioned 
American  spirit.  The  danger  is  that  a  nation 
that  has  been  roused  to  a  sense  of  power  by  the 
war  will  act  swiftly  and  intolerantly  without 
discriminating  sufficiently  between  those  who 
would  reform  society  and  those  who  would 
wreck  it. 


CHAPTER  III 

BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE 

Nor  only  is  there  nothing  new  under  the  sun, 
but  in  New  York  I  find  the  same  views,  opin- 
ions, and  conclusions  that  I  had  heard  to  the 
point  of  weariness  even  in  Ekfrid.  The  trans- 
mission of  news  and  the  diffusion  of  propa- 
gandas have  reduced  the  world  to  the  same 
mental  level.  For  instance :  a  friend  placed  his 
car  at  my  disposal  so  that  I  could  go  about  the 
city  comfortably  and  expeditiously.  Being 
full  of  questions  I  took  my  seat  beside  the 
chauffeur  and  invited  information.  He  proved 
to  be  a  skilled  mechanic  who  had  left  produc- 
tive work  to  drive  a  car  in  the  city.  He  had 
been  through  the  Spanish-American  War,  but 
had  avoided  the  Great  War,  being  past  the 
age  limit  of  the  earlier  drafts.  He  had  had 
all  he  wanted  of  war.  "War  is  simply  a 
scheme  by  which  the  big  men  and  the  profiteers 
put  it  over  the  plain  people.  The  plain  people 


24         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

get  all  the  knocks  of  war  and  pay  the  cost  of  it 
besides,  while  the  big  men  get  all  the  glory  and 
the  crooks  get  the  profits." 

Nothing  new  about  that.  I  have  heard  the 
same  talk  in  Vancouver,  Calgary,  Winnipeg, 
Toronto,  and  even  on  farms.  The  plain  peo- 
ple of  one  country  are  like  the  plain  people  of 
any  other  country.  They  feel  that  whoever 
won  the  war  they  did  not  win  it.  And  they 
don't  want  any  more  of  it.  What  they  want  is 
to  square  accounts  with  the  men  who  made 
profits  from  the  war,  and  then  go  through  the 
rest  of  their  lives  without  doing  anything  in 
particular  on  which  others  can  make  a  profit. 
They  even  seem  to  think  that  they  might  live 
out  their  day  on  the  profits  that  others  have 
accumulated  — r  if  they  could  only  have  justice 
properly  administered.  Anyway,  this  business 
of  working  hard  and  letting  others  have  a  pro- 
fit on  your  work  is  something  that  belongs  to 
the  old,  stupid  days  before  the  war,  when  men 
were  not  awake  to  their  rights  and  privileges. 

This  is  really  the  philosophy  of  the  Lotus- 


BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE         25 

Eaters,  and  possibly  it  is  a  natural  reaction 
after  the  war. 

Perhaps  there  is  even  a  biological  necessity 
for  the  aversion  to  old-fashioned  work  that  is 
apparent  under  all  flags.  Possibly  we  might 
find  analogies  in  nature  that  would  cast  a  light 
on  the  subject.  Let  us  consider  the  case  of  the 
bees  —  which  moralists  persist  in  pointing  to 
for  our  emulation.  Every  bee-keeper  knows 
that  when  a  hive  of  bees  takes  to  robbing 
other  hives  its  usefulness  is  ended.  Robber 
bees,  that  have  once  learned  the  ease  and  delight 
of  plundering  the  accumulated  stores  of  other 
hives,  will  never  go  back  to  the  drudgery  of 
gathering  their  food  from  the  flowers.  They 
will  go  on  robbing  until  they  are  destroyed  in 
battle  by  hives  that  are  able  to  protect  them- 
selves or  until  they  have  starved  in  the  midst 
of  plenty  because  they  refused  to  work.  I  do 
not  know  whether  Fab  re  or  Maeterlinck  has 
studied  the  degeneracy  and  downfall  of  a  hive 
of  bees  that  has  taken  to  robbing,  but  it  would 
be  worth  their  while. 


26         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

But  people  will  protest  at  once  that  the 
Great  War  was  not  a  war  of  plunder.  It  was  a 
war  to  fight  back  the  nation  that  had  started 
out  to  plunder  the  world.  Blind!  Every  na- 
tion engaged  in  the  war  plundered  itself  even 
though  it  did  not  plunder  others.  All  our  re- 
serves of  wealth,  food  materials,  and  resources 
were  of  necessity  thrown  into  the  war  and  were 
as  certainly  destroyed  or  plundered  as  if  we 
had  been  overrun  by  the  enemy.  When  the 
armistice  was  declared  we  should  have  faced 
the  future  as  nations  that  had  been  defeated 
rather  than  as  victors.  Unless  we  do  that 
without  further  delay  the  defeat  of  civilization 
may  be  complete. 

At  this  point  my  meditations  were  inter- 
rupted by  my  mild  and  pleasant-voiced  chauf- 
feur. He  glared  back  over  my  shoulder  with 
a  real  fighting  face. 

" What's  the  matter?"  I  asked  in  alarm. 

"That  driver  back  there  gave  me  a  look  and 
I  was  giving  him  one  back."  I  admitted  that 
he  certainly  was  giving  him  a  look. ' 


BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE         27 

"Some  fellows  think  they  own  the  streets," 
he  grumbled.  "That  fellow  tried  to  edge  me 
out  of  my  place  and  when  he  found  he  could 
n't  do  it  he  was  sore.  A  fellow  like  that  makes 
me  want  to  get  back  to  the  primitive  with 
him."  He  glared  back  once  more,  but  the 
other  driver  had  disappeared  in  the  traffic. 

But  his  phrase  stuck  and  it  seems  significant 
—  "Get  back  to  the  primitive." 

I  wonder  if  my  chauffeur  originated  it  — 
or  is  it  a  gem  from  some  propaganda  that  I  will 
meet  with  when  I  resume  my  travels?  Any- 
way, it  is  most  excellent  good.  Getting  back 
to  the  primitive  is  about  the  most  natural 
thing  that  human  beings  do  just  now.  For 
long  and  dark  ages  the  world  was  ruled  by  big 
biceps  rather  than  by  big  brains  —  and  every- 
thing was  primitive.  And  during  the  Great 
War  we  went  back  to  the  primitive  with  scien- 
tific thoroughness.  The  ape  and  tiger  were  not 
only  given  a  new  lease  of  life,  but  were  trained 
and  equipped  for  their  work  by  the  best 
brains  of  the  world.    To  the  ferocity  of  the 


28         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

primitive  we  added  the  magic  of  science  — 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  science  has  enough  magic 
left  to  recapture  and  cage  the  ape  and  tiger. 
The  primitive  man  is  proud  of  himself  and 
conscious  of  his  power.   Indeed,  he  even  feels 
benevolent  toward  a  world  that  he  feels  com- 
petent to  manage  and  control.  And  that  serene 
kindly,  capable  attitude  is  the  most  danger- 
ous aspect  of  the  revolutionary  mood  of  man- 
kind. The  anarchists  and  agitators  we  under- 
stand to  some  extent  and  can  deal  with.  They 
are  a  natural  reaction  in  a  world  of  ruthless 
enterprise.   But  these  placid,  altruistic  world- 
wreckers  raise  goose-flesh  on  me.    They  give 
me  a  grue.  During  the  past  thirty  years  I  have 
met  many  anarchists  and  have  not  contended 
with  them,  for  they  know  the  wrong  side  of 
every  subject  so  exhaustively  that  they  can 
down  any  one  in  an  argument.  Though  all  of 
them  talked  violently,  most  of  them  were  too 
human  to  do  anything  reckless.    I  have  in 
mind  at  the  present  moment  a  tender-hearted 
anarchist  whose  whole  soul  revolted  against  the 


BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE         29 

injustice  and  cruelty  of  organized  society.  In 
theory  he  would  have  torn  down  governments, 
burned  cities,  and  assassinated  kings  and 
plutocrats.  On  the  platform  and  in  the  Red 
press  he  was  terrible. 

But  the  poor  man  suffered  from  a  handi- 
cap that  rendered  him  futile.  He  had  a  wife 
whom  he  loved  and  children  whom  he  adored. 
If  he  did  his  duty  and  hurled  bombs  at  the 
oppressors,  what  would  become  of  his  family? 
He  could  not  do  anything  that  might  cause 
them  distress  or  suffering.  He  had  given  hos- 
tages to  fortune.  But  if  he  had  been  a  free 
man  —  The  conflict  between  his  radical  brain 
and  his  kindly  heart  furnished  the  most  tragic 
comedy  that  has  ever  come  within  my  expe- 
rience. 

But  these  serene  altruists,  often  well-read 
and  thoughtful,  are  much  more  dangerous  than 
the  most  raving  Reds.  They  are  so  sure  of  the 
economic  soundness  of  their  views  and  so 
kindly  in  their  intentions  that  one  almost  feels 
ashamed  to  oppose  them  or  laugh  at  them. 


30         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

They  are  not  parlor  Bolshevists,  but  men  who 
might  be  described  as  super-sane  —  men  who 
are  too  rational  for  a  mad  world. 

My  first  experience  with  this  class  was  on 
the  Western  prairies,  just  before  the  Winnipeg 
strike.  I  was  travelling  on  a  branch  railroad, 
and  not  being  willing  to  wait  for  an  express 
train  I  found  accommodation  in  the  caboose 
of  a  freight.  Being  thrown  into  the  company 
of  the  conductor  and  trainmen  I  cultivated 
their  society  and  induced  them  to  talk.  What 
amazed  me  was  their  satisfied  certainty  that 
the  world  was  to  be  made  over  at  once  without 
a  struggle.  Capital,  the  great  robber  of  labor, 
was  to  be  eliminated.  Government  was  to  be 
taken  over  by  the  workers  and  all  profits  would 
go  to  those  who  earned  them.  As  to  the  man- 
agement of  affairs  —  was  n't  that  all  done 
already  by  hard-worked,  under-paid  clerks 
while  highly  paid  officials  took  all  the  credit  ? 
Take  President  Beatty,  of  the  C.  P.  R.  What 
did  he  do  but  sit  at  a  flat-topped  desk  in  a 
luxuriously  appointed  office  and  draw  a  big 


BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE         31 

salary  while  others  did  the  work?  They  were 
not  angry  about  it.  They  were  merely 
ashamed  that  the  matter  had  not  been  settled 
long  ago.   It  was  all  so  simple. 

In  Edmonton  I  met  with  more  of  these  men 
who  were  about  to  shatter  organized  society 
and  "remould  it  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire." 
One  in  particular  impressed  me  curiously.  He 
had  the  appearance  of  a  man  accustomed  to 
hard  labor  who  was  taking  a  rest  and  medi- 
tating on  world  problems.  His  aspect  was 
dreamy  but  kindly.  I  found  him  in  the  office 
of  the  Honorable  Frank  Oliver,  and  he  was 
trying  to  induce  that  hardheaded  statesman 
of  the  old  regime  to  publish  in  his  paper  a  pros- 
pectus for  the  new  world.  According  to  the 
new  plan  all  the  people  from  the  farms  of 
Alberta  were  to  move  into  the  cities,  where 
they  could  get  proper  shelter  when  the  big 
hotels  and  the  homes  of  the  rich  would  be 
taken  over  by  the  men  whose  labor  had  built 
them  and  had  made  them  possible.  I  wish  I 
had  a  copy  of  the  document,  but  one  phrase 


32         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

that  stuck  in  my  memory  will  give  a  taste  of 
its  quality.  The  ingenuous  dreamer  proposed 
a  method  of  dealing  with  the  crops  needed  to 
supply  food  that  struck  me  as  unique.  He 
proposed  that  when  seeding-time  came  round, 
"joyous  bands"  would  go  out  from  the  cities 
and  put  in  the  crops.  Having  some  experience 
of  the  drudgery  of  farm  work  that  phrase  im- 
pressed me.  Similar  bands  would  go  out  at 
harvest-time  and  garner  the  grain.  Mr.  Oliver 
was  so  dazed  that  he  did  n't  say  a  word.  He 
passed  over  the  document  and  waited  for 
my  opinion.  I  had  nothing  to  say.  And  yet 
neither  of  us  is  without  a  certain  command  of 
language. 

The  cumulative  effect  of  this  contact  with 
the  new  altruism  was  that,  when  I  started  for 
home  from  Winnipeg,  I  reminded  myself  of 
the  soul  of  Stephen  Leacock's  Melpomenus 
Jones,  which  escaped  from  its  earthly  tene- 
ment "like  a  hunted  cat  over  the  back-yard 
fence."  I  hoped  devoutly  that  my  kindly 
friend  of  the  prairie  freight  would  not  succeed 


BACK  TO  THE  PRIMITIVE         33 

President  Beatty  at  the  fiat-topped  desk  until 
we  had  been  travelling  for  at  least  twenty- four 
hours.  If  we  got  through  the  rocky  district 
and  reached  old  Ontario,  I  could  walk  the  rest 
of  the  way  home. 

Because  of  such  experiences  I  am  not  un- 
duly surprised  at  the  kind  of  talk  I  hear  among 
the  advanced  and  kindly  thinkers  of  labor 
circles.  I  hope  to  pick  up  a  few  more  phrases 
as  delightful  as  "joyous  bands"  and  "get  back 
to  the  primitive." 

Surely,  oh,  surely  it  is  high  time  that  some 
one  turned  light  and  laughter  on  this  muddle. 
Canada  and  the  United  States  are  alike  in 
their  need  of  a  solution  for  this  problem. 
They  have  more  important  matters  pressing 
for  attention  than  the  question  of  who  won 
the  Great  War.  And,  in  concluding  this  chap- 
ter, let  me  record  the  astounding  fact  that  as 
yet  no  one  has  assured  me  that  the  United 
States  won  the  war. 


CHAPTER  IV 
GRASPING  THE  NETTLE 

We  are  told  that  the  way  to  handle  a  nettle  is 
to  grasp  it  firmly.  Never  having  had  any  need 
of  handling  a  nettle,  I  have  not  tested  the 
truth  of  this  popular  saying  and  consequently 
have  some  hesitation  about  using  it  in  connec- 
tion with  our  international  relations.  It  is 
quite  applicable  as  far  as  the  stinging  quality 
of  the  subject  is  concerned ;  but  whether  taking 
hold  of  it  firmly  will  help  matters  remains  to 
be  seen.  Anyway,  I  propose  to  set  down  the 
truth  as  I  have  found  it  without  further  persi- 
flage or  evasion. 

It  is  beyond  question  that  there  is  a  growing 
bitterness  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain — including  the  Dominions 
Overseas.  On  both  sides  of  the  borderline  be- 
tween Canada  and  the  United  States  there  are 
constant  bitter  expressions  of  opinion,  and  un- 


GRASPING  THE  NETTLE  35 

less  something  can  be  done  to  check  the  evil 
the  results  may  be  disastrous.  On  the  plat- 
form and  in  the  press  dislike  and  contempt  are 
finding  daily  expression.  What  is  the  cause  of 
this  and  what  is  its  significance  ? 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  watchfulness 
and  jealous  sense  of  honor  due  to  what  Herbert 
Spencer  has  called  the  ''bias  of  patriotism." 
Few  patriotic  citizens  can  avoid  being  irritated 
by  any  disparagement  of  the  land  of  their 
birth.  We  are  taught  in  the  schools  to  be 
proud  of  our  own  country  and  to  guard  her 
rights  even  to  the  extent  of  giving  our  lives  in 
her  defence.  This  is  something  that  has  the  ap- 
proval of  all  governments  and  of  most  citizens. 
But  the  majority  are  firmly  convinced  that  in 
order  to  love  their  own  country  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  hate  any  other  man's  country.  Though 
patriotism  may  be  shown  in  the  irritation 
between  two  countries  it  is  not  the  cause  of  the 
irritation.  We  must  seek  the  cause  elsewhere. 

During  the  later  years  of  the  war  there 
was  a  wonderfully  friendly  feeling  among  the 


36         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

Allied  countries.  Since  the  signing  of  the 
armistice  the  friendship  has  been  vanishing 
and  a  growing  cleavage  becoming  evident. 
For  over  a  year  I  have  been  watching  the 
matter  closely,  and  now  that  I  have  had  a 
chance  to  investigate  on  both  sides  of  the  line 
I  feel  safe  in  making  a  few  definite  statements. 
To  begin  with,  I  found  in  Canada  that  dislike 
of  the  United  States  is  confined  very  largely  to 
the  platform  and  press.  The  plain  people  — 
the  farmers  and  all  classes  of  workers  —  have 
very  little  feeling  in  the  matter.  They  simply 
want  a  chance  to  put  their  affairs  in  order  after 
the  war.  What  I  have  been  able  to  learn  while 
visiting  the  United  States  has  convinced  me 
that  the  attitude  of  the  farmers  and  workers 
of  that  country  is  either  friendly  or  indifferent 
to  the  people  of  Canada.  Then  why  the  atti- 
tude of  the  press  and  platform?  They  are 
supposed  to  voice  the  sentiments  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people. 

That  may  have  been  the  case  in  an  earlier 
and  undeveloped  age,  but  the  situation  has 


GRASPING  THE  NETTLE  37 

changed.  The  partisan  spirit  which  inclines 
people  to  stick  to  their  own  party  organiza- 
tion through  all  vicissitudes  of  public  opinion 
practically  cancels  their  political  influence. 
A  million  hidebound  Conservative  voters  who 
can  be  depended  on  not  to  change  their  opin- 
ions will  cancel  a  million  hidebound  Liberal 
voters.  Therefore,  the  press  and  platform  — 
not  to  mention  the  political  workers  who  use 
more  sordid  and  corrupt  methods  —  direct 
their  efforts  to  capturing  the  remaining  vote 
that  through  ignorance,  high-mindedness,  dis- 
content, or  any  other  reason  is  not  attached 
to  either  party.  Thus  it  becomes  evident  that 
the  utterances  of  the  press  and  platform  do  not 
voice  the  sentiments  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 
They  merely  show  the  efforts  that  are  being 
made  to  capture  the  floating  vote  which  will 
finally  decide  in  any  election.  They  are  sec- 
tional and  often  criminally  reckless.  There  is 
no  need  of  giving  specific  instances  of  the 
attempts  to  capture  any  particular  group  of 
voters  outside  of  the  party  folds  either  in  the 


38         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

United  States  or  Canada.  Every  reader  can 
call  to  mind  instances  where  this  has  been 
done. 

But  this  does  not  deal  with  the  specific 
grievances  that  are  aired  in  official  utterances. 
Quite  true,  but  it  casts  some  light  on  the  rea- 
son for  airing  them.  But  if  we  are  to  handle 
this  nettle  we  must  deal  with  these  grievances. 

Very  well.  First  there  is  the  egotism  of 
Americans  regarding  the  part  they  played  in 
the  war.  This  finds  expression,  not  only  in  the 
press  and  from  the  platform,  but  in  the  movie 
shows.  (As  the  movies  play  so  important  a 
part  in  making  trouble  I  shall  devote  a  separ- 
ate chapter  to  them.)  Then  there  is  the  ques- 
tion of  exchange. 

The  adverse  exchange  rates  cause  much 
wrath  in  Canada,  and  though  I  suspect  that 
speculation  may  have  much  to  do  with  aug- 
menting the  difference,  there  is  something 
fundamental  in  our  trade  relations  that  makes 
a  certain  amount  of  adverse  exchange  inevit- 
able at  the  present  time.    If  this  is  not  true, 


GRASPING  THE  NETTLE  39 

then  we  loyal  Canadians  have  much  to  answer 
for.  If  the  Wall  Street  financiers  are  doing 
a  grievous  wrong  to  Canadians  every  time 
they  discount  a  dollar,  then  how  about  us  every 
time  we  discount  a  pound  sterling  and  dis- 
count it  more  severely  than  our  own  dollar  is 
discounted  ?  The  most  loyal  Canadian  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Mother  Country  takes  advantage 
of  adverse  exchange.  Does  this  mean  disloy- 
alty, hatred  of  Great  Britain,  and  all  greed  and 
unkindness?  Certainly  not.  No  one  thinks  so 
for  a  moment.  It  is  the  result  of  international 
conditions.  Then  may  not  the  attitude  of  the 
United  States  be  governed  by  the  same  inter- 
national conditions  ?  Anyway,  it  can  hardly  be 
an  avoidable  policy,  adopted  maliciously  and 
on  purpose  to  humiliate  and  rob  us,  or  we 
would  not  be  adopting  an  avoidable,  malicious 
policy  of  this  kind  against  our  Mother  Coun- 
try. One  does  not  need  to  be  deep  in  the 
mysteries  of  finance  to  realize  this  proposition. 
Either  we  are  disloyal  and  rapacious  toward 
Great  Britain  or  the  Americans  not  wholly 


4o         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

rapacious  in  exchange  dealings  with  us.  They 
are  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  a  doubt.  This 
question  of  exchange  and  the  wickedness  of 
the  United  States  is  much  in  the  mouths  of  the 
supporters  of  the  high  tariff  —  so  it  is  possible 
that  their  inability  to  see  the  truth  of  the  situ- 
ation is  due  more  to  selfish  purpose  than  to 
lack  of  financial  understanding. 

In  the  case  of  the  press  I  got  an  impression 
of  opinion  from  an  American  who  controls  or 
influences  a  great  amount  of  publicity.  I 
called  to  see  him  to  ask  if  something  could  not 
be  done  to  allay  the  irritation  and  improve 
the  situation.  With  cheerful  cynicism  he  laid 
bare  the  real  situation. 

"To  tell  you  the  truth  we  are  making  the 
most  of  the  irritation  for  party  reasons.  But 
the  other  party  is  just  as  bad  as  we  are.  I 
know  it  is  rotten  and  even  dangerous,  but  we 
are  forced  to  do  it  if  we  want  to  get  the  float- 
ing vote." 

Few  men  in  public  life  are  so  candid,  but 
he  wanted  to  be  friendly  and  to  save  me  trou- 


GRASPING  THE  NETTLE  41 

ble,  and  was  talking  as  one  public  writer  to 
another.  I  am  thankful  to  him  for  his  straight- 
forwardness in  the  matter.  Now  let  us  turn 
to  Canada. 

There  are  few  Canadians  who  have  for- 
gotten how  the  indiscreet  utterances  of  Mr. 
Champ  Clark  and  of  President  Taft  were  used 
to  rouse  the  wrath  of  Canadians  when  "no 
truck  or  trade  with  the  Yankees  "  was  a  slogan 
of  power.  The  success  of  that  slogan  en- 
trenched the  protectionists.  And  now  that 
every  possible  cause  of  irritation  between  the 
neighboring  countries  is  being  commented 
upon  and  aggravated,  it  does  not  seem  out  of 
place  to  suspect  that  further  tinkering  on  that 
wall  is  to  be  undertaken  as  one  of  our  fall 
chores.  This  indicates  that  back  of  the  patri- 
otic jealousy  displayed  on  the  platform  and  in 
the  press  there  is  a  sinister  purpose.  Men  who 
use  politics  to  achieve  their  purpose  do  not 
hesitate  to  stir  up  racial  strife  —  no  matter 
what  the  ultimate  consequences.  As  this  line 
of  conduct  has  crystallized  in  Canada  in  the 


42         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

phrase  "No  truck  or  trade  with  the  Yankees," 
the  blame  for  playing  with  this  evil  fire  rests  on 
the  party  that  benefits  by  the  hatred  provoked. 
They  attain  their  ends  by  what  a  leader  of  the 
United  Farmers  of  Ontario  described  as  "the 
most  criminal  conduct  possible  to  a  public 
man." 

For  fear  the  reader  may  think  I  am  holding 
a  brief  for  free  trade,  I  may  as  well  state  my 
personal  position  on  that  question  also.  I  am 
not  an  out-and-out  free  trader.  Though  the 
theory  of  free  trade  satisfies  my  reason  it  is 
not  supported  by  my  experience.  This  is  an 
imperfect  world  and  free  trade,  like  the  single- 
tax,  with  which  it  is  involved,  is  too  perfect 
for  our  present  state  of  development.  It  is 
rather  a  goal  to  be  worked  toward  than  a 
panacea  to  be  applied  suddenly.  As  I  have 
long  been  of  the  opinion  that  almost  every 
advance  in  history  has  been  made  through 
a  benevolent  opportunism,  I  believe  in  ap- 
proaching the  ultimate  goal  of  free  trade  by 
steps,  as  opportunity  affords.   In  consequence 


GRASPING  THE  NETTLE  43 

I  have  no  deep  quarrel  with  the  protectionist 
or  high-tariff  advocate  on  the  score  of  the 
application  of  his  political  and  economic  prin- 
ciples. But  there  is  a  matter  on  which  I  have 
an  unappeasable  quarrel  with  him.  When  he 
bolsters  up  his  tariff  wall  by  appeals  to  racial 
hatred  he  is  guilty  of  a  treason  to  humanity 
that  cannot  be  lightly  condoned.  At  the  pres- 
ent time,  when  all  humanity  is  crying  for 
peace,  the  cultivation  of  race  hatred  is  espe- 
cially criminal.  So  if  it  should  be  found  that 
the  irritation  existing  between  Canada  and 
the  United  States  is  due  to  the  desire  of  the 
supporters  of  the  high  tariff,  then  let  us  have 
free  trade  "red  in  tooth  and  claw."  Tariff 
wars  lead  to  blood  wars  and  surely  we  have 
had  enough  of  them. 


CHAPTER  V 

REGISTERING  REFORM 

Posstbly  no  one  other  thing  has  done  so  much 
to  cause  irritation  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States  as  the  film  plays.  As  most  of 
those  used  in  Canada  are  manufactured  in 
the  United  States,  the  jingoism  they  reveal 
arouses  constant  anger.  During  the  war  film 
plays  were  used  as  propaganda  to  arouse  the 
American  spirit  and  to  awaken  a  pride  in  the 
achievements  of  American  soldiers.  Naturally 
these  plays  did  not  emphasize  the  heroism  of 
the  British  and  Canadians,  and  when  exhib- 
ited in  British  territory,  purely  as  a  business 
venture,  they  did  harm  that  no  one  stopped  to 
compute.  They  earned  money  for  their  pro- 
moters and  for  the  local  movie  houses,  so  what 
more  need  be  considered  ?  In  the  United  States 
their  political  effect  was  admirable.  They 
roused  the  war  spirit  of  the  people  and  stirred 
national  pride.    No  one  apparently  took  the 


REGISTERING  REFORM  45 

trouble  to  give  a  thought  to  how  these  propa- 
ganda films  would  look  to  the  returned  soldiers 
of  Canada  and  to  a  people  nerve-racked  by 
war.  They  would  earn  additional  money  in 
Canada  —  so  let  them  go.  Listen  to  any 
Canadian  who  is  expressing  ill-feeling  toward 
the  United  States,  just  now,  and  you  will  find 
that  nine  times  out  of  ten  the  irritation  can 
be  traced  back  to  the  movies. 

Wishing  to  learn  if  it  would  be  possible  to 
remedy  this  international  evil  I  decided  to 
go  to  the  fountain-head  of  the  trouble.  A 
friendly  publisher  arranged  to  have  me  meet 
one  of  the  master  minds  in  a  film-producing 
company  of  world-wide  activities.  The  mod- 
ern Prospero  would  see  me  at  3.30,  in  his  office 
in  one  of  "the  cloud-capped  towers."  Know- 
ing that  I  must  shake  off  all  philosophic  lan- 
guor for  this  interview  I  went  at  it  as  if  I  were 
going  to  make  a  running  jump  of  a  new  kind. 
A  mile  away  from  my  destination  I  climbed 
into  a  high-powered  car  (borrowed)  and  ap- 
proached the  great  man's  office  at  the  speed 


46         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

limit.  An  express  elevator  shot  me  up  to  the 
proper  floor  and  I  burst  into  the  presence  of 
the  outer  guard.  By  this  time  I  had  acquired 
the  necessary  momentum  and,  in  reply  to  his 
swift,  interrogatory  glance,  snapped  out  a  card 
and  "flashed." 

"Mr.  Swiftbrain —  appointment —  3.30." 
He  grabbed  a  telephone,  repeated  my  claim 
of  an  appointment,  listened  a  moment,  then 
waved  me  to  an  upholstered  chair  that  looked 
rather  better  than  the  ones  from  the  Kaiser's 
Throne  Room  that  are  now  for  sale  in  New 
York. 

"I  am  to  send  you  in  in  five  minutes!" 
I  was  glad  of  the  respite,  for  it  would  enable 
me  to  recover  my  breath.  Office  boys  who  were 
in  the  waiting-room —  ready  to  "  Post  o'er  land 
and  ocean  without  rest"  in  obedience  to  the 
autocrat  of  the  switchboard  —  were  so  full  of 
the  jazz-time  spirit  of  this  temple  of  the  mov- 
ies that  they  could  n't  keep  still.  Even  when 
resting,  their  feet  beat  time  to  some  inaudibile, 
syncopated  rhythm. 


REGISTERING  REFORM  47 

During  my  five  minutes  of  probation  much 
business  was  transacted.  Trembling  writers  of 
scenarios  entered,  left  their  manuscripts,  and 
passed  out.  Girls  with  handfuls  of  documents 
minced  in  and  out  passing  from  one  depart- 
ment to  another,  and  each  carried  herself  with 
the  air  of  a  film  queen.  Hasty  young  men 
registering  " urgent  business"  passed  through 
with  the  air  of  a  Douglas  Fairbanks  or  Dus- 
tin  Farnum.  Their  well-tailored  coat-tails 
streamed  back  like  the  robes  of  Hyperion  when 

"His  flaming  robes  streamed  out  beyond  his 
heels 
And  gave  a  roar  as  if  of  earthly  fire." 

Suddenly  I  heard  the  snap  of  a  gold  watch- 
case  and  an  authoritative  arm  shot  out,  point- 
ing to  the  door  through  which  the  main  traffic 
was  passing. 

"  Down  to  the  far  end !  Turn  to  the  left !  — 
Room  Umpty-Umph!" 

Rising  as  if  from  a  catapult  I  fell  in  step  be- 
hind a  hasty  edition  of  Fatty  Arbuckle.  When 
I  reached  the  properly  numbered  door  and 


48         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

opened  it,  I  was  met  by  a  man  who  knew  my 
name  and  business.  He  registered  "welcome" 
and  waved  me  to  a  chair.  I  accepted  the  cour- 
tesy and  registered  "attention."  He  bounced 
back  into  his  swivel  chair  and  registered  "can- 
dor."  And  he  was  astonishingly  candid. 

Movie  plays  are  a  purely  business  proposi- 
tion. It  made  him  sick  to  have  people  talk 
about  ideals  and  art  in  connection  with  them. 
It  was  their  business  to  give  the  public  stories 
that  would  grip  them  and  make  them  want  to 
see  the  shows.  If  the  people  felt  like  hating 
any  one  or  anything,  give  them  plenty  of  hate 
stuff  and  play  it  up  as  long  as  it  fills  the  houses. 
It  is  not  their  business  to  educate.  They  are 
practical  business  men,  out  after  money. 

Hs  presently  interrupted  his  monologue  to 
answer  the  telephone,  which  had  jingled  at  his 
elbow.  I  suspect  that  the  interruption  was 
part  of  the  routine  of  the  office.  Anyway,  I 
got  my  cue.  He  was  to  see  his  next  visitor  in 
five  minutes.  Resuming  his  monologue  he 
impressed  on  me  the  fact  that  the  one  thing 


REGISTERING  REFORM  49 

the  movie  firms  are  after  is  stories  that  will 
grip  the  public  and  make  them  give  up  their 
money. 

Then  I  got  up  and  registered  "gratitude" 
while  he  registered  "Don't  mention  it."  We 
did  a  close-up  hand-shake  and  I  passed  through 
the  door.  Returning  toward  the  front  en- 
trance I  was  quite  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of 
the  place  and  pranced  like  a  horse  with  the 
spring-halt. 

That,  I  think,  is  a  fair  presentation  of  the 
spirit  and  atmosphere  of  the  fountain-head  of 
the  movie  shows  that  are  pleasing  the  people 
of  the  United  States  and  rousing  the  wrath  of 
Canadians.  Only  by  giving  a  touch  of  bur- 
lesque is  it  possible  to  indicate  what  is  done  or 
how  it  is  done.  Here  we  have  the  greatest 
moulder  of  public  opinion  in  the  world  —  in- 
finitely more  powerful  than  the  press  because 
it  makes  emotion  visible  —  and  yet  it  is  with- 
out any  purpose  higher  than  the  grasping  of 
money.  There  is  no  George  Brown,  Delane,  or 
Greeley  to  use  this  tremendous  power  for  the 


50         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

good  of  humanity.  Sordid,  exciting,  without 
conscience,  it  is  bad  enough  when  devoted 
merely  to  money-making;  but  when  used  for 
purposes  of  propaganda  it  is  a  public  menace. 
The  dollars  of  the  propagandist  are  just  as 
good  to  the  promoters  of  film  plays  as  those  of 
the  public,  and  when  one  can  get  both  it  is  a 
triumph.  So,  hurrah  for  the  scenario  that  will 
get  the  support  of  the  campaign  fund,  put 
across  politics,  either  national  or  international, 
and  at  the  same  time  win  the  nickels  of  the 
public.  Get  them  going  and  coming!  That  is 
the  motto !  Never  mind  what  the  results  may 
be  —  other  than  those  that  show  in  the  box 
offices. 

Of  course  these  reflections  are  inspired  by 
what  I  found  in  the  United  States.  Now  let 
me  tell  you  something  about  Canada,  where 
the  movie  business  is  in  its  infancy. 

By  a  curious  blunder  I  was  invited  to  see  a 
new  film  of  which  a  private  performance  was 
to  be  given.  It  is  seldom  that  I  have  ever 
seen  anything  so  amazing  as  this  movie  show 


REGISTERING  REFORM  51 

proved  to  be.  The  story  was  highly  emotional 
and  was  enough  to  rouse  the  wrath  of  any  one 
against  the  aliens  in  the  Dominion.  The  polit- 
ical propaganda  stuck  out  like  a  sore  thumb, 
and  if  I  had  swallowed  its  presentation  of  con- 
ditions in  Canada,  I  would  have  been  quite 
ready  to  vote  for  the  War  Times  Election  Act 
or  anything  else  that  would  suppress  every  one 
who  did  not  support  Imperialism  and  a  lot  of 
"isms"  not  nearly  so  respectable.  But  I  had 
been  through  the  West  and  had  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  facts  that  were  distorted  in 
this  play.  It  merely  aroused  laughter.  It  was 
what  political  experts  would  call  "  coarse 
work,"  but  perhaps  the  public  will  never  see 
•it  in  all  the  rawness  of  that  first  performance. 
I  was  assured  that  it  was  to  be  edited  and 
amended.  My  investigations  afterwards  forced 
from  a  responsible  representative  of  the  high- 
tariff  interests  a  frank  admission  that  the  play 
already  had  political  backing  and  that  the  pri- 
vate view  I  had  inadvertently  seen  had  been 
put  on  for  the  benefit  of  a  selected  audience  of 


52         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

magnates  and  to  get  the  support  of  the  busi- 
ness interests. 

These  experiences  have  convinced  me  that 
irresponsible  movie  shows  must  be  brought 
under  control.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  them 
censored  so  that  immoral  and  pornographic 
plays  may  be  kept  from  polluting  the  youth 
of  the  country.  Some  means  must  be  found 
to  make  some  one  responsible  —  just  as  an 
editor  or  publisher  is  responsible  —  for  the 
reckless  political  impressions  they  convey. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  part  played 
by  the  movies  in  causing  irritation  between 
the  United  States  and  Allied  countries  is  in- 
advertent. We  all  did  jingo  things  to  keep  up 
our  morale  during  the  war.  Such  things  were 
not  harmful  to  other  countries  when  confined 
within  the  borders  of  the  countries  using 
them,  but  the  international  character  of  Amer- 
ican film  enterprises  has  flaunted  American 
jingoism  in  the  face  of  the  world  —  at  a  time 
when  the  world  is  not  in  the  humor  to  endure 
it.    It  was  not  the  intention  to  insult  other 


REGISTERING  REFORM  53 

countries,  but  the  films  could  earn  additional 
money  —  and  what  did  anything  else  matter? 
It  will  be  necessary  to  correct  this  evil  if  we  are 
to  have  harmonious  relations  with  our  neigh- 
bors. Moreover,  propaganda  plays  for  home 
consumption  must  be  put  in  the  same  class  as 
patent  medicine  advertisements  in  the  news- 
papers, if  we  are  to  have  a  healthy  public  opin- 
ion. We  must  have  them  properly  labelled, 
with  the  formula  of  their  ingredients  shown  in 
an  introductory  flash. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ACCUSED 

But  neither  the  press,  the  movies,  nor  the  ex- 
change account  fully  for  the  attitude  of  the 
Allies  toward  the  United  States.  The  chief 
accusation  against  Americans  at  the  present 
time  is  of  callous  selfishness.  They  have  de- 
serted the  great  cause  of  humanity  to  accumu- 
late profits  and  play  petty  politics.  Have  it 
that  way  if  you  wish.  Say  your  worst  and 
prove  it  and  you  will  accomplish  nothing. 
Neither  would  anything  be  accomplished  if 
the  United  States  agreed  to  all  of  which  she 
is  accused  and  roused  herself  to  do  what  her 
critics  regard  as  her  duty.  The  solution  of 
the  world's  problems  does  not  lie  within  the 
sphere  of  governments,  and  can  neither  be 
aided  nor  hindered  by  laws  or  covenants  that 
statesmen  and  rulers  can  devise.  The  United 
States  is  now  in  practically  the  same  position 
as  the  devastated  nations  of  Europe.   In  spite 


THE  ACCUSED  55 

of  her  swollen  wealth  her  future  depends  on 
the  conduct  of  her  citizens  rather  than  on  the 
collective  wisdom  of  political  parties,  govern- 
ments or  business  interests.  The  earth  hold  of 
humanity  has  been  broken  by  the  war,  no  less 
in  the  United  States  and  Canada  than  in  the 
old  world.  Unless  men  and  women  return 
voluntarily  to  productive  work,  this  glittering, 
unreal  wealth  will  prove  to  be  but  gaudy  trap- 
pings covering  hunger  and  poverty.  While  we 
are  concerning  ourselves  with  world  problems, 
the  problems  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  are 
being  despised  as  unworthy  of  our  attention. 
We  are  increasing  our  stores  of  money  while 
the  supply  of  necessary  things  that  money  can 
buy  is  steadily  diminishing.  We  are  bringing 
nations  to  trial,  the  United  States  as  well  as 
Germany,  in  a  courtroom  that  threatens  to 
tumble  about  our  heads.  We  are  clamoring 
for  justice  but  justice  is  impossible. 

There  is  one  great  lesson,  above  all  others, 
that  has  been  taught  by  this  war  and  that 
few  have  learned.  Surely  we  should  be  able 


56         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

to  see  by  now  the  futility  of  human  justice. 
If  those  who  have  been  affected  by  this  war 
could  live  forever  and  the  best  human  judg- 
ment could  be  exercised  throughout  eter- 
nity, we  could  not  render  justice  to  those  who 
sinned  or  to  those  who  suffered.  The  healing 
of  the  world  does  not  wait  on  justice. 

May  one  without  irreverence  go  back  to  the 
birth  of  Christianity?  At  that  time  the  world 
was  groaning  under  the  administration  of 
Roman  justice.  Mosaic  justice  was  also  play- 
ing its  part. 

It  is  reasonably  clear  that  the  appeal  of  the 
new  dispensation  was  strengthened  by  the  in- 
evitable reaction  from  the  oppressions  of  jus- 
tice. The  Mosaic  and  Roman  systems  were 
the  most  marvellous  ever  devised,  but  tor- 
mented humanity  cried  aloud  against  them. 

"The  soul  of  man,  like  an  unextinguished  fire, 
Yet  burns  towards  Heaven  with  fierce  reproach, 

and  doubt, 
And  lamentation,  and  reluctant  prayer, 
Hurling  up  insurrection." 


THE  ACCUSED  57 

Out  of  that  bitterness  was  born  the  one 
thought  that  has  been  of  value  to  the  human 
race.  The  amazing,  divine  discovery  was 
made  that  forgiveness  is  better  than  justice 
and  that  only  through  kindness  and  brother- 
hood can  life  endure.  That  one  flash  of  light 
has  been  the  guiding  star  of  all  the  great  souls 
that  have  struggled  and  sacrificed  themselves 
to  lead  the  world  to  better  things  in  the  past 
two  thousand  years.  But  since  the  dawn  of 
history  men  have  been  striving  for  that  form 
of  vengeance  they  call  justice.  And  the  most 
pathetic  aspect  of  the  present  crisis  is  that  we 
are  harking  back  to  the  primitive  and  demand- 
ing justice  on  a  scale  never  attempted  before. 
We  would  even  weigh  nations  in  the  scales  of 
justice,  though  we  have  no  adequate  balance 
and  no  counterpoise. 

Of  course  it  would  never  do  to  ask  an  indig- 
nant and  outraged  world  to  forgive  a  Ger- 
many that  has  tried  to  destroy  the  hope  of 
man.  Very  well.  It  does  not  matter  whether 
you  forgive  or  whether  you  punish.   Though 


58         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

you  forgive  her,  she  will  not  be  forgiven.  For- 
giveness will  not  save  her  from  the  disaster  she 
has  brought  on  herself  no  less  than  on  others. 
And  you  cannot  punish  her  without  danger 
of  further  disasters.  The  whole  matter —  the 
Kaiser  as  well  as  the  nations  —  has  passed  out 
of  our  hands  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  awful 
compensations  of  higher  laws  than  those  that 
man  can  administer.  And  as  for  us  —  for  all 
of  us  —  we  must  face  the  future  as  individuals 
rather  than  as  nations.  In  the  terrible  words 
of  General  Smuts,  "Humanity  has  struck  its 
tents  and  is  once  more  on  the  march."  And 
when  humanity  marched  in  the  past  it  always 
marched  for  food  —  for  lands  of  promise  flow- 
ing with  milk  and  honey.  But  the  lands  of 
promise  have  all  been  discovered.  They  have 
been  mapped  and  are  occupied.  So  the  only 
thing  left  for  humanity  to  do  is  to  pitch  its 
tents  again  —  or  lapse  into  anarchy.  While  I 
would  not  pretend  to  defend  the  United  States 
for  its  present  isolation  and  apparent  indiffer- 
ence when  so  many  of  my  compatriots : —  and 


THE  ACCUSED  59 

those  the  ones  supposed  to  speak  with  author- 
ity —  are  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn,  I  have 
a  feeling  that  under  this  apparent  indifference 
there  is  a  blind,  instinctive  groping  for  the 
true  solution  of  humanity's  problem.  I  found 
the  best  people  perplexed  rather  than  defiant. 
They  were  raging  at  their  own  futility  —  futile 
because  they  could  not  yet  see  through  the 
battle-smoke  that  still  envelops  the  world. 
And  I  am  hopeful  that  before  long  they  will 
fulfil  Kipling's  estimate: 

"While  reproof  around  him  rings 
He  turns  a  keen  untroubled  face 
Home,  to  the  instant  need  of  things." 

The  charge  is  brought  against  them  that  they 
are  without  spiritual  insight.  I  would  give 
this  accusation  more  weight  if  I  had  more  re- 
spect for  the  spiritual  pretensions  of  others. 
No  man  and  no  nation  need  lay  claim  to  spir- 
itual insight  while  clamoring  for  justice.  The 
dispensation  under  which  wTe  are  supposed  to 
live  is  the  dispensation  of  forgiveness  and 
helpfulness.   We  profess  the  Golden  Rule  and 


6o         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

yet  demand  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth.    Could  anything  be  more  pathetically 
absurd  ?  If  the  world  were  not  so  wounded  and 
stricken  one  might  be  moved  to  inextinguish- 
able laughter  by  the  pompous  inanities  of  men 
who  would  administer  God's  justice  in  a  world 
that  has  been  brought  to  its  present  pitiful 
state  by  organized  greed.  The  over-organiza- 
tion of  humanity  for  profit  made  the  Great 
Catastrophe  inevitable  and  our  cure  for  it  is 
more  and  greater  organizations.   But  "God  is 
not  mocked."  When  man  established  democ- 
racy it  was  implied  that  every  citizen  would 
prove  capable  of  self-government,  would  do  his 
full  share  of  the  work  of  the  world.  And  now 
the  safety  of  democracy  depends,  not  on  gov- 
ernments or  on  leagues  of  government,  but  on 
the  willingness  and  ability  of  each  citizen  to 
do  his  part.    In  the  past  we  went  woefully 
astray.    The  ambition  of  every  strong  man 
was  to  accumulate  wealth  and  leave  behind 
him  a  family  that  would  be  freed  from  the 
need  of  performing  the  work  of  true  citizens  — 


THE  ACCUSED  61 

that  would  live  parasitically  on  the  proceeds 
of  claims  on  production  which  he  established 
and  for  which  he  secured  legal  sanction.    In- 
stead of  great  democracies  of  citizens  each 
doing   their   part,   we   developed   organized, 
ruthless    autocracies    of    industrialism     and 
finance   that   made   bloodless   war   on  each 
other  and  established  a  social  parasitism  that 
amazed  the  world  with  its  luxury  and  extrava- 
gance. But  the  hour  of  testing  has  come.  Un- 
less the  great  democracies  of  the  West,  the 
United  States  and  Canada,  can  justify  the 
gospel  of  freedom  and  equality  they  have  been 
flaunting  before  the  world,  their  fate  will  be 
quickly  sealed.    But  if  they  can  clothe  their 
professions  in  deeds,  and  every  citizen  by  his 
actions  can  show  himself  worthy  to  be  a  citi- 
zen of  a  true  democracy,  they  will  give  the 
world  the  leadership  it  so  sorely  needs.  To 
do  this  they  must  banish  the  old,  hard  fetish 
of  justice  —  or  if  they  must  have  justice  let 
them  render  it,  not  demand  it.    If  they  take 
the  true  path  it  will  matter  little  what  happens 


62         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

to  the  wealth  to  which  they  have  been  de- 
voted. 

Indeed,  nothing  could  be  more  disastrous 
to  mankind  than  that  the  present  swollen  war 
wealth  which  is  so  evident  and  insulting  in  all 
the  capitals  of  the  world  should  become  fixed 
and  permanent.  The  establishment  of  this 
reckless  wealth  on  a  stable  basis  would  justify 
the  intolerable  conviction  that  war  is  profit- 
able and  there  would  be  no  end  to  wars.  The 
most  wisely  devised  League  of  Nations  could 
not  prevent  their  recurrence.  They  would  be 
more  likely  to  increase  than  to  disappear. 

Let  no  one  say  that  this  would  mean  anar- 
chy and  the  destruction  of  our  social  order.  It 
would  simply  mean  a  return  to  the  austere 
virtues  of  our  fathers,  under  the  law  and  order 
which  our  fathers  established.  Let  it  not  be 
forgotten  that  generations  of  men  and  women 
have  sacrificed  themselves  on  the  altar  of 
humanity  so  that  freedom  might  be  made  sure 
in  his  new  world.  With  incredible  labor  that 
found  its_  reward  in  the  building  of  homes 


THE  ACCUSED  63 

rather  than  in  dollars  they  cleared  away  the 
forests  and  made  the  wilderness  blossom.  No 
one  who  believes  in  the  God  of  nations  can  be- 
lieve that  so  much  high  aspiration  and  gener- 
ous effort  can  go  down  to  defeat.  In  spite  of 
misunderstandings,  irritations,  and  the  selfish, 
petty  intrigues  of  politicians,  the  hope  of 
humanity  still  lies  with  the  democracies  of  the 
West.  They  bought  their  freedom  at  a  great 
price,  and,  in  spite  of  mistakes  and  follies, 
that  freedom,  and  the  example  of  their  fathers, 
will  point  to  them  the  path  of  duty. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS 

One  interested  hour  was  spent  in  the  office  of 
a  captain  of  industry  who  attended  to  urgent 
work  while  I  read  a  morning  paper  and 
awaited  his  leisure.  As  the  nature  of  his  busi- 
ness was  largely  Greek  to  me  I  could  be 
allowed  to  overhear;  but  I  was  really  more 
interested  in  the  methods  than  in  the  matter 
of  his  transactions.  The  pressure  of  a  button 
would  bring  an  office  boy,  a  secretary,  or  a 
salesman  to  his  side,  according  to  the  needs 
of  the  moment.  While  he  was  going  through 
his  mail  telegrams  were  delivered  to  him  and 
the  telephone  jingled  at  his  elbow.  He  dic- 
tated letters,  talked  over  the  telephone,  and 
answered  telegrams  —  even  cablegrams  — 
without  leaving  his  desk.  He  not  only  talked 
to  other  business  men  in  the  city,  but  an- 
swered long-distance  calls  from  other  cities  and 


A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS         65 

ordered  long-distance  calls.  If  his  activities 
could  be  traced  in  red  lines  on  a  map,  they 
would  resemble  the  charts  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem I  saw  a  few  days  ago  when  going  through 
an  Institute  of  Anatomy.  His  office  was  a 
ganglion  of  the  modern  business  organism. 

Listening  idly  to  the  multitude  of  orders 
that  were  issued  I  noticed  presently  that  some- 
thing was  wrong.  Though  orders  were  placed 
and  information  received  as  through  a  sensi- 
tive system  of  nerves,  the  orders  were  being 
held  up.  There  were  outlaw  strikes  on  the 
railways  —  and  freight  was  not  being  moved. 
Stevedore  unions  were  not  only  refusing  to 
handle  certain  products  of  the  company  be- 
cause they  were  packed  in  bags  and  were  too 
dusty  and  messy  for  highly  paid,  well-dressed 
stevedores  to  handle,  but  they  refused  to  let 
the  employees  of  the  company  handle  the  stuff 
because  they  were  not  members  of  the  union. 
That  sounds  absurdly  unreasonable,  but  it  is 
a  recorded  fact. 

Keeping  up  the  simile  of  business  as  a  living 


66         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

organism,  I  think  this  would  be  regarded  as 
symptomatic  of  a  pathological  condition  of 
the  circulatory  system  —  to  be  technical,  it 
might  be  described  as  arterio-sclerosis,  or 
hardening  of  the  arteries.  A  very  deadly  dis- 
ease, and  if  the  cities  are  beginning  to  suffer 
from  it,  the  outlook  is  serious. 

Now  let  us  essay  a  burden  of  great  cities. 

It  would  be  a  safe  thing  to  prophesy  the 
downfall  of  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia 
,  —  of  all  the  capitals  of  the  world.  Isaiah  and 
the  old  prophets  were  discreet  in  prophesying 
against  cities,  for  given  enough  time  their 
prophecies  were  bound  to  be  fulfilled. 

"Of  Ur  and  Erech  and  Accad  who  shall  tell?  | 
And  Calneh  in  the  land  of  Shinar?   Time 
Hath  made  them  but  the  substance  of  a  rhyme." 

To    continue    borrowing    from   Archibald 
Lampman,  where  now  are 

"Memphis  and  Shushan,  Carthage,  Meroe"? 

They  have  passed  and  are  merely 

"A  sound  of  ancientness  and  majesty." 


A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS  67 

The  list  of  dead  cities  that  were  once  the  capi- 
tals of  empires  is  as  long  as  the  dusty  tale  of 
archaeology.  All  have  gone  down  and  all  must 
go.  As  it  would  not  be  considered  sporting  to 
prophesy  a  sure  thing  we  shall  leave  the  cities 
to  their  inevitable  destiny.  If  one  cared  to 
examine  into  the  matter  it  would  be  found  that 
a  day  of  wrath  is  approaching  for  them,  and  if 
there  be  a  sure  foundation  for  the  law  of  the 
acceleration  of  civilization  which  has  been  an- 
nounced recently  the  day  is  not  far  off.  Indeed, 
it  might  be  shown  that  all  civilization  is  rap- 
idly approaching  a  precipice,  but  every  one  is 
hopeful  that  Dr.  Einstein  or  some  equally  pro- 
found philosopher  will  trammel  the  law  of 
gravity  so  that  we  shall  fall  over  the  precipice 
slowly  and  land  softly. 

But  enough  of  cities.  The  urgent  need  of 
to-day  is  for  some  one  to  prophesy  against  the 
farmers.  The  ultimate  fate  of  civilization  rests 
with  them  —  and  they  are  bowing  down  to 
the  old  gods  of  politics  and  power. 

Let  us  consider  their  case. 


68         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

In  the  modern  farmer,  free,  educated,  pros- 
perous, we  have  the  one  new  thing  under  the 
sun:  something  for  which  history  has  no  prece- 
dent. The  old  cities  and  civilizations  were  all 
fed,  supported,  and  enriched  by  the  slave 
populations  that  worked  the  land,  dug  the 
mines,  and  did  every  kind  of  productive  work. 
And  when  the  cities  went  down  the  country 
perished  also.  But  thanks  to  the  ideals  of  our 
fathers,  the  farmers  and  laborers  of  to-day  are 
educated  like  the  free  citizens  of  the  ancient 
cities.  If  we  had  continued  true  to  the  ideals 
of  our  fathers,  we  should  all  have  self-support- 
ing homes  of  our  own.  But  we  must  build 
cities,  organize  for  profit,  and  live  luxuriously. 

Mark  what  has  happened.  Capital  was 
accumulated  in  the  cities.  Capital  gradually 
organized  business  and  established  it  in  the 
great  centres.  When  business  was  centralized, 
labor  was  centralized  and  began  to  organ- 
ize. Now  capital  and  labor  are  at  each  other's 
throats  and  likely  to  prove  themselves  the 
substance  of  Shelley's  symbols. 


A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS  69 

"We  two  will  sink  on  the  wide  waves  of  ruin 
Even  as  a  vulture  and  a  snake  outspent 
Drop,  twisted  in  inextricable  fight, 
Into  a  shoreless  sea." 

At  the  present  time  the  farmers  are  the  sole 
inheritors  of  the  ideals  of  our  fathers.  But  like 
the  foolish  men  of  the  cities  they  are  also  or- 
ganizing for  profit.  They  have  forgotten  that 
the  home  was  the  one  great  ideal  of  the  men 
and  women  who  braved  the  perils  of  the  ocean 
and  conquered  the  wilderness.  Farming  is 
above  all  a  home-building  occupation — rather 
than  a  money-making  business.  But  now  men 
no  longer  regard  the  place  where  they  live  as  a 
home.  It  is  merely  a  speculation  in  real  estate. 
They  try7  to  estimate  everything  in  terms  of 
dollars  —  and  the  money  profits  are  so  meagre 
that  all  who  are  able  are  deserting  the  farms  and 
joining  in  the  great  jazz-time  dollar  dance  of 
the  cities.  The  farmers  are  forsaking  the  sub- 
stance for  the  glitter  —  or  are  organizing  for 
political  power  so  that  they  may  divert  the 
stream  of  dollars  toward  the  farms.  Of  course 


70         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

it  can  be  shown  that  under  modern  conditions 
there  can  be  no  home  without  money.  But 
why  trouble  about  modern  conditions?  The 
world  is  very  old  and  has  developed  many 
great  men  and  all  that  we  know  of  good  with- 
out the  aid  of  modern  conditions.  Few  of  the 
poets  and  prophets  and  great  leaders  of  the 
past  were  born  in  the  cities.  "Modern  condi- 
tions" —  luxury,  extravagance,  dissipation, 
and  parasitism  —  undoubtedly  encompassed 
the  destruction  of  all  the  great  cities  whose 
names  move  sonorously  in  verse.  And  now  the 
farmers  are  lusting  for  the  "modern  condi- 
tions" that  are  hurrying  the  cities  to  destruc- 
tion. 

Now  that  the  farmers  are  educated  and 
"profess  apprehension,"  why  do  they  not  read 
the  great  portents  of  our  time  ?  Can  they  not 
see  that  some  cosmic  pendulum  that  measures 
the  progress  of  man  toward  his  destiny  has 
started  on  its  backward  swing?  All  the  great 
symbols  and  allegories  by  which  we  have  been 
taught  in  the  past  are  now  being  reversed. 


A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS  71 

After  the  Deluge  men  built  the  Tower  of 
Babel  so  that  they  might  not  be  destroyed. 
And  for  their  presumption  they  were  scattered 
by  a  confusion  of  tongues. 

After  the  Great  War  —  a  man-made  disas- 
ter as  terrible  as  the  Flood  —  we  are  having 
all  the  confused  tongues  of  ancient  Babel  unit- 
ing in  a  cry  that  men  must  come  together  to 
make  the  world  safe  for  democracy.  What  was 
scattered  is  reassembling. 

We  are  told  that  in  the  beginning  man  was 
placed  in  a  garden  —  on  the  land  —  but  for 
his  disobedience  he  was  driven  forth  by  cher- 
ubim with  a  flaming  sword. 

He  built  himself  cities  as  places  of  refuge 
from  the  savage  creatures  and  enemies  of  the 
country.  But  the  cities  betrayed  his  trust. 
They  became  great  and  terrible  until  now 
those  who  are  disillusioned  of  "modern  con- 
ditions" are  turning  toward  the  country  as  a 
refuge  from  the  cities.  The  procedure  has 
been  reversed  and  all  who  have  vision  can  see 
that  a  day  will  come  —  a  day  of  hunger  and 


72         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

fear  —  when  man  will  be  driven  back  to  his 
garden  by  cherubim  with  a  flaming  sword. 

But  this  is  the  old-time  prophecy  of  woes  to 
come  —  and  pessimism  is  not  popular.  Let  us 
return  to  everyday  life  and  see  what  we  can 
find  of  hope.  At  the  risk  of  an  anticlimax 
I  shall  venture  to  deal  with  what  will  seem  but 
little  things  after  your  thoughts  have  been 
dealing  with  what  we  have  ignorantly  re- 
garded as  great  things.  Let  us  consider  one 
little  thing  —  that  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world.   Let  us  give  a  thought  to  the  home. 

While  visiting  the  great  cities  I  have  visited 
in  homes,  and  in  the  thing  most  complained  of 
I  have  found  the  first  ray  of  hope.  There  are 
no  longer  any  servants  for  families  of  moderate 
means.  The  work  of  the  home  must  be  done 
by  those  who  enjoy  the  home.  Because  of  this 
there  is  a  fuller  and  freer  home  life.  Women  of 
education  and  culture  who  have  been  com- 
pelled by  the  high  cost  of  living  to  do  their  own 
work  are  doing  it  better  than  it  was  ever  dene 
by  servants.    They  are  better  cooks  than  the 


A  BURDEN  OF  FARMERS  73 

cooks  they  had  in  the  past,  and  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  are  of  necessity  learning  les- 
sons of  helpfulness.  If  the  death-struggle  of 
labor  and  capital  should  paralyze,  or  at  least 
decentralize,  civilization,  we  have  an  atavistic 
capacity  to  do  our  own  work.  Our  forefathers 
did  their  own  work  and  we  look  back  to  them 
proudly  as  being  better  than  we  are.  The 
cities  are  full  of  men  and  women  who  were 
born  on  the  farms  and  know  how  to  do  the 
work  of  farms,  and  when  the  truth  of  Job's 
words  is  brought  home  to  them  —  "as  for 
bread,  it  cometh  from  the  earth"  —  they  can 
go  back  to  the  earth  with  confidence.  The  true 
mission  of  the  educated,  thinking  farmer  to- 
day is  to  use  his  newly  acquired  power  to  pre- 
serve the  new  experiment  in  civilization  tried 
by  our  fathers  and  which  made  the  home 
rather  than  money  the  unit  of  success.  Let 
them  cooperate  to  establish  their  own  homes 
and  to  help  others  to  establish  self-supporting 
homes  and  we  shall  have  a  more  glorious  civil- 
ization than  has  been.  If  we  return  to  the 


74         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

vision  and  hope  of  those  who  established  the 
democracies  of  the  new  world,  the  cherubim 
with  the  flaming  sword  may  prove  to  be 
heralds,  whose  sword  will  be  miraculously 
changed  into  a  torch  lighting  us  to  a  better 
world.  But  this  change  will  be  wrought,  not 
by  statesmen,  but  by  men  and  women  worthy 
to  be  citizens  of  a  democracy  —  men  and 
women  who  are  not  ashamed  to  do  little  things 
and  do  them  well.  And  we  are  taught  not  to 
"despise  the  day  of  little  things." 


CHAPTER  VIII 
A  WORLD  DRAMA 

While  travelling  from  New  York  to  Philadel- 
phia I  saw  men  at  work  in  the  fields  for  the 
first  time  in  two  weeks.  I  had  been  enjoying 
the  great  drama  of  business  in  one  of  the 
greatest  cities  of  the  world.  But  the  sight  of 
men  at  work  in  the  fields  suddenly  reminded 
me  that  while  walking  the  streets  I  was  miss- 
ing the  annual  production  of  "crops"  —  a 
drama  as  old  as  Time,  that  will  run  until  the 
end  of  Time.  As  the  significance  of  what  was 
in  progress  dawned  on  me  and  gripped  my 
imagination,  I  was  puzzled  to  decide  whether 
I  should  review  this  play  as  a  tragedy  or  as  a 
roaring  farce.  From  one  point  of  view  it  is 
pitiful  to  the  point  of  tears;  from  another,  it  is 
broadly  comic.  Before  deciding  what  treat- 
ment it  shall  be  given,  let  us  analyze  the  plot 
of  the  wonderful  performance  that  will  hold  a 


76         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

world-wide  stage  through  the  spring,  summer, 
and  autumn.  If  we  give  it  our  undivided  at- 
tention we  shall  find  that  it  covers  every  form 
of  human  activity,  and  reveals  in  rapid  action 
all  the  possibilities  of  human  nature.  It  is  the 
one  play  in  all  the  world  that  deserves  to  be  in- 
troduced by  the  greatest  prologue  ever  written. 

"O  for  a  Muse  of  fire,  that  would  ascend 
The  brightest  heaven  of  invention, 
A  kingdom  for  a  stage,  princes  to  act, 
And  monarchs  to  behold  the  swelling  scene. " 

Having  suggested  the  magnitude  of  the  per- 
formance, I  shall  ask  you  to  mark  the  per- 
formance, either  in  the  theatre  of  your  imagi- 
nation, or  by  going  out  into  the  fields  where 
it  will  be  enacted ;  I  am  going  to  ask  you  to 

"Admit  me  Chorus  to  this  history: 

Who,  prologue-like,  your  humble  patience  pray 

Gently  to  hear,  kindly  to  judge,  our  play." 

Once  more  the  food  of  the  world  is  to  be  pro- 
duced. Working  in  accord  with  nature,  man 
will  sow  seed,  prune  his  trees,  trim  his  vines, 
tend  his  herds  and  flocks,  and  bow  his  shoul- 


A  WORLD  DRAMA  77 

ders  to  the  burden  of  toil,  so  that  the  world 
may  be  fed.  To  guide  him  in  his  work  he  draws 
on  the  long  experience  of  the  race  and  the  en- 
lightenment of  modern  science ;  to  aid  him  he 
calls  for  the  best  tools  and  machinery  that  the 
brain  can  devise.  As  soon  as  the  farmer  drives 
his  team  to  the  field  he  stimulates  activity  in 
the  colleges  and  laboratories  and  in  all  the 
mines  and  factories.   Those  who  labor  in  the 
cities  may  go  on  with  their  work,  for  there  will 
be  food  to  pay  for  their  products.  But  there  is 
something  more.    Besides  renewing  the  food 
supply  of  the  world  —  the  most  necessary 
work  of  all,  for  we  are  never  more  than  a  few 
months  away  from  the  hunger  line  —  the  men 
who  work  in  the  fields  will  re-create  the  wealth 
of  the  world.   Without  being  renewed  by  the 
interest  and  profits  to  be  derived  from  the 
crops,  Capital,  that  bulks  so  large  and  is  often 
so   insolent,  would  dwindle   and  disappear. 
Financiers,   Manufacturers,   Promoters,   and 
Captains  of  Industry  depend  on  the  crops  — 
on  the  labor  of  the  men  in  the  fields  —  as 


78         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

much  as  any  one  else.  They  devise  their  great 
schemes,  launch  their  projects,  and  undertake 
their  enterprises  solely  with  a  view  to  getting 
a  share  of  the  new  wealth  that  will  be  taken 
from  the  fields  and  perfected  by  labor.  The 
crops  and  the  wages  of  the  laboring  men  will 
pay  debts  contracted  for  necessities  and  luxu- 
ries, and  pay  the  interest  on  borrowed  money. 
The  financial  machinery  of  the  world  can 
work  smoothly,  for  there  will  be  a  flood  of  new 
wealth  when  the  crops  are  harvested.  If  the 
crops  failed,  or  if  the  farmers  refused  to  pro- 
duce, the  cities  would  be  wiped  out  and  the 
social  fabric  would  crumble.  The  Government 
would  be  without  revenues.  If  debts  and  in- 
terest were  not  paid,  dividends  on  stocks  and 
bonds  would  cease  and  the  capitalist  would 
be  reduced  to  beggary.  Without  the  yearly 
work  of  the  farmers  our  magnificent  civiliza- 
tion would  relapse  to  barbarism  and  our  great 
world  drama  would  become  a  mad  scramble 
of  savages.  From  this  point  of  view  the  farm- 
er's part  is  entirely  heroic.    He  is  the  demi- 


A  WORLD  DRAMA  79 

Atlas  of  the  world,  the  "arm  and  bourgonet  of 
men."  In  our  great  drama,  introduced  by  bird 
song  and  lighted  by  the  spring  sunshine,  he  is 
surely  cast  for  the  title  role.  Alas,  the  pity  of 
it !  He  has  been  too  often  merely  the  drudge 
—  the  serf  who  provided  the  luxuries  of  his 
over-lords. 

Watch  the  drama  while  it  unfolds.  For 
weary  months  the  men  who  are  struggling 
with  nature  toil  early  and  late,  pit  their  skill 
against  all  the  forces  that  oppose  them,  endure 
the  droughts  and  storms  and  struggle  against 
all  the  chances  that  might  defeat  them  in  pro- 
ducing the  world's  food.  They  are  too  busy  to 
watch  the  drama.  Often  they  are  too  busy  for 
thought.  All  of  them  have  hopes  that  may  be 
fulfilled  if  the  crops  are  good  —  little  hopes 
compared  with  those  of  the  men  who  are  wait- 
ing in  the  wings  for  their  cues.  If  things  turn 
out  well  they  may  be  able  to  put  by  something 
for  the  future,  enjoy  an  excursion  out  into  the 
amazing  world,  indulge  in  some  coveted  luxury 
or  improve  their  homes  and  farms.   But  most 


80         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

of  them  will  have  to  be  satisfied  with  ordi- 
nary food,  shelter,  and  clothing  —  just  suffi- 
cient to  carry  them  and  their  families  through 
the  winter  until  the  great  drama  is  staged 
again.  But  before  they  are  sure  of  anything 
they  must  gather  in  their  harvest  and  market 
it.  Now  begins  the  joyous  comedy  —  the  up- 
roarious fun.  The  banks  provide  the  counters 
—  money  —  for  " moving  the  crops."  Loans 
are  repaid  to  them  with  interest,  and  they 
thrive.  Transportation  companies,  almost  all 
built  by  the  money  of  the  people,  though  not 
owned  by  them,  move  the  crops  —  and  there 
is  a  golden  stream  of  dividends.  Middlemen, 
as  "efficient"  as  pickpockets,  handle  the  food 
of  the  world  over  and  over,  and  at  every  turn 
profits  are  made.  But  it  would  be  impossible 
in  a  brief  review  to  trace  the  food  from  the 
farm  to  the  table  of  that  other  poor  dupe,  the 
city  laboring  man.  It  reaches  his  table  finally 
at  famine  prices.  His  food  is  assured  and  the 
great  comedy  of  life  can  proceed.  The  profit 
gatherers,  who  work  with  the  villain  of  the 


A  WORLD  DRAMA  81 

piece,  Uncontrolled  Capital,  have  their  wealth 
as  well  as  their  food  supply  renewed,  and  they 
can  revel  and  riot.  All  the  arts  flourish  and  the 
cities  grow  proud.  The  world  is  safe  for  an- 
other year,  and  then  the  performance  will  be 
repeated  as  it  has  been  since  the  world  began. 
As  this  play  is  of  human  origin,  developed 
in  disobedience  to  many  divine  commands,  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  suggesting  a  few  im- 
provements. As  given  at  present,  Capital  has 
all  the  fat  parts,  and  the  men  who  do  the  real 
work  are  crowded  off  the  stage.  The  vast 
majority  are  cast  for  "thinking  parts,"  and 
are  kept  so  busy  that  they  have  neither  the 
time  nor  the  energy  to  think.  But  some  day 
they  may  think  enough  to  discover  that  the 
leading  actor,  Capital,  depends  on  them,  in- 
stead of  having  them  depend  on  him  and  his 
high-toned  crowd.  They  may  discover  that 
Cooperation  will  give  them  all  the  assistance 
they  need  and  that  Capital  can  be  made  a 
servant  instead  of  master.  They  may  realize 
that  the  men  who  make  the  wealth  of  the 


82         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

world  deserve  a  fair  share  of  it.  Cooperation 
will  do  away  with  the  profits,  interest,  and  div- 
idends that  now  go  to  re-create  every  year  the 
predatory  Capital  that  supports  social  para- 
sites. Wealth  will  not  be  divided,  as  some 
Utopians  have  dreamed,  but  the  men  who 
create  wealth  will  be  given  the  right  to  hold 
their  fair  share  of  it.  When  the  play  is  prop- 
erly rewritten,  the  men  who  do  the  work  of 
food  distribution  and  the  distribution  of  all 
necessaries  —  and  luxuries,  for  that  matter  — 
will  be  the  servants  of  the  people  rather  than 
their  millionaire  masters.  A  cooperating  peo- 
ple will  be  more  powerful  than  any  corpora- 
tion, and  can  employ  the  brains  that  are  now 
being  employed  by  capitalists  who  exploit 
them.  And  the  task  of  rewriting  the  play  will 
not  be  done  by  a  political  party  elected  on  that 
platform.  It  will  be  done  by  the  workers 
themselves.  Any  discerning  critic  can  tell  you 
that  there  is  more  economic  progress  in  the  for- 
mation of  an  egg-circle  than  can  be  won  at  a  gen- 
eral election.   The  people  are  crushed  at  the 


A  WORLD  DRAMA  83 

present  time,  not  because  the  Big  Interests 
are  so  well  organized,  but  because  the  people 
are  not  organized  at  all.  The  watchword  of 
to-day  is  "Cooperate!"  That  is  the  slogan  of 
universal  brotherhood  and  of  a  new  civiliza- 
tion that  we  can  all  enjoy.  Every  new  organ- 
ization of  producers  or  consumers  is  a  step 
forward  and  a  blow  to  Capitalism.  Every  step 
they  are  making  in  the  way  of  politics  is  usu- 
ally a  mistake  —  that  tends  to  place  them  in 
the  power  of  men  more  adroit  than  they  can 
ever  hope  to  be.  When  the  actors  in  our  play 
get  to  work  and  rewrite  it,  it  will  be  a  great 
and  stimulating  drama  worth  seeing.  It  will 
be  robbed  both  of  its  tragical  and  farcical 
aspects  and  given  a  serene  beauty.  Organize 
the  industry  in  which  you  are  engaged  and 
you  will  be  rewriting  your  own  lines  in  the 
great  drama  of  life  and  making  the  situations 
in  which  you  take  part  more  dignified  and 
satisfying.  It  is  a  glorious  drama  and  one 
worth  acting  a  part  in,  if  all  the  people  would 
see  to  it  that  they  get  their  fair  share  of  the 


84         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

fat  lines  and  cut  out  the  bombastic  speeches 
of  Uncontrolled  Capital.  Why  not  start  to 
rewrite  your  lines  to-day  ?  When  enough  small 
organizations  have  been  formed  in  which  the 
members  will  cooperate,  for  their  own  good  and 
for  the  good  of  all,  it  will  be  easy  to  reorgan- 
ize our  whole  social  system.  An  egg-circle, 
a  beef-ring,  a  fruit-growers'  association,  a 
farmers'  club,  or  a  labor  union  will  do  as  well 
as  anything  else.  Organize  for  cooperation, 
and  the  baneful  influences  of  both  Capitalism 
and  Partisan  Politics  will  disappear.  Organize 
for  political  action  and  you  will  be  just  where 
you  were  when  you  started.  We  must  have 
politics,  for  we  must  have  governments,  but 
when  governments  act  as  umpires  rather  than 
as  rulers  in  a  cooperating  world,  politics  will 
become  a  help  to  the  world  instead  of  a  men- 
ace. Let  us  follow  the  advice  of  our  heavy 
financial  and  industrial  leaders  and  take  busi- 
ness out  of  politics,  but  let  us  first  cooperate 
to  make  the  business  our  own.  And  now  is 
the  time  to  begin. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  WORLD  FOR  SALE 

Although  I  did  not  keep  account  of  the  mat- 
ter, I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  in  my 
travelling  I  have  met  more  dealers  in  real 
estate  than  of  any  other  class  of  men.  One  sat 
with  me  in  the  train  between  Hamilton  and 
Toronto  and  dwelt  on  the  advantages  of  real- 
estate  investments  in  the  Mountain  City. 
Even  foreign  laborers  who  are  unable  to  speak 
English  are  making  thousands  in  real  estate. 
In  the  observation  car,  travelling  from  Mon- 
treal to  Boston,  one  of  my  fellow-passengers 
was  an  international  real-estate  agent.  He 
had  opened  subdivisions  in  Seattle,  Winnipeg, 
London,  Montreal,  and  Brooklyn.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  optimistic  men  I  have  ever 
met.  He  could  see  possibilities  even  in  the 
swamps  that  we  passed  and  in  the  rocky  slopes 
of  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont  that  were 


86         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

revealed  through  the  car  windows.  I  suspect 
that  he  would  not  hesitate  to  open  a  subdivi- 
sion on  the  planet  Mars,  with  a  frontage  on 
the  leading  canal,  if  he  could  get  an  astrono- 
mer to  furnish  him  with  a  map  and  blue-prints. 
If  he  should  decide  to  do  this  he  would  have 
no  trouble  selling  corner  lots,  for  the  country 
is  full  of  men  and  women  who  buy  real  estate 
on  maps. 

In  New  York  I  found  friends  debating 
whether  to  sell  the  homes  they  had  established, 
by  thrift  and  industry,  so  that  they  could  take 
advantage  of  boom  prices. 

In  Vancouver,  Calgary,  Edmonton,  and 
Winnipeg  it  had  been  the  same.  Not  only  city 
properties,  but  farm  lands  were  for  sale  every- 
where. The  friends  I  visited  were  all  dealing  in 
real  estate  on  the  side  —  no  matter  what  their 
professions  might  be.  This  preoccupation  led 
to  some  amusing  consequences,  and  I  have  a 
happy  recollection  of  one  joyous  half-hour  in 
a  mining  town  in  British  Columbia.  I  had 
been  visiting  a  great  smelter  in  the  company 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  87 

of  an  engineer  who  dealt  in  real  estate  on  the 

side. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  smelter  he  intro- 
duced me  to  the  smoke  expert  of  the  institu- 
tion. That  sounds  innocent  enough,  for,  like 
me,  you  probably  do  not  know  what  a  "smoke 
expert"  is.  I  asked  for  explanations,  and  right 
there  the  trouble  began.  I  found  that  the 
"smoke  expert"  is  really  a  botanical  patholo- 
gist, whose  business  it  is  to  show  that  smelter 
smoke  does  not  cause  all  the  damage  that 
afflicts  the  crops  of  farmers  and  orchardists 
within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles.  As  the  real- 
estate  agent  had  been  telling  me  that  British 
Columbia  is  entirely  free  from  all  bugs, 
blights,  and  pests,  my  interest  was  aroused  at 

once. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  there  really 
are  blights  and  destructive  fungi  in  this  prov- 
ince?" I  asked  incredulously. 

The  "smoke  expert"  made  a  gesture  of 
despair. 

"The  place  is  simply  full  of  them." 


88         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

"  Come  on !  Don't  listen  to  him ! "  yelled  the 
real-estate  man,  recognizing  the  mistake  he 
had  made.  "He's the  damnedest  liar  in  British 
Columbia." 

"Wait  a  minute,"  I  replied.  "I  want  to 
know.  That  is  what  I  am  here  for.  Now,  tell 
me  please,  please,  what  orchard  pests  there 
are?" 

"Well,  there  are  no  coddling  worms — " 

"You  '11  admit  that  because  no  one  ever  sued 
the  smelter  for  putting  coddling  worms  in 
apples.   Come  along!  Don't  listen  to  him!" 

"But  there  is  fire-blight  on  pears — " 

"That's  a  damned  lie!  I  have  a  whole 
orchard  of  pears  and  there  has  never  been  a 
trace  of  fire-blight.  Any  fire-blight  in  this 
district  has  been  caused  by  the  smoke  from 
your  blithering  smelter." 

"But,"  I  reproached  him,  "if  something 
like  fire-blight  is  caused  by  smelter  smoke, 
isn't  that  just  as  bad  as  fire-blight?  You 
did  n't  say  anything  to  me  about  smelter 
smoke." 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  89 

"It  doesn't  do  any  damage  either  —  at 
least  not  much." 

"But  the  farmers  have  been  suing  us,"  said 
the  smoke  expert.  "Of  course  they  had  no 
reason  to  sue  us  because  the  damage  was 
clearly  done  by  fire-blight." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind!  And,  anyway,  the 
prevailing  wind  carries  the  smelter  smoke  over 
the  mountains  where  there  are  no  orchards  or 
farms.  Aw,  come  along,  and  don't  listen  to 
him!" 

The  "smoke  expert"  smiled  sadly  and 
shook  his  head  with  gentle  tolerance.  Finding 
in  me  the  first  sympathetic  listener  he  had  had 
for  years  he  persisted  in  making  revelations. 

"Last  fall  I  found  an  interesting  case  of 
'withered  plum' — " 

"You  could  n't  convince  the  jury  that  it 
was  a  fungous  growth  that  affected  those 
plums." 

"No,  for  they  did  n't  want  to  be  convinced. 
They  wanted  to  soak  us.  Then  there  was  that 
' clover  sickness.'" 


90         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

Seeing  that  he  could  n't  stop  what  he  had 
started,  the  disgusted  real-estate  agent  col- 
lapsed into  a  chair  while  I  had  an  illuminating 
chat  with  the  "smoke  expert."  Occasionally 
he  interrupted  with  a  vivid  protest,  but  he 
could  n't  quench  my  thirst  for  knowledge,  or 
the  expert's  desire  to  impart  scientific  informa- 
tion. 

"Let  me  tell  you  what  the  fellows  did!"  he 
at  last  exclaimed  triumphantly.  "They  took 
some  healthy  leaves  and  sprinkled  them  with 
sulphuric  acid.  This  expert  diagnosed  it  as 
shot-hole  fungus  —  a  kind  that  he  had  been 
looking  for  for  years  —  a  kind  they  have  in 
Australia  —  " 

"You're  another!"  said  the  expert.  "There 
is  real  shot-hole  fungus  here!" 

So  the  battle  raged,  but  I  shall  not  report  it 
further.  Juries  of  farmers  have  invariably  de- 
cided against  the  learned  and  patient  "smoke 
expert,"  and  I  have  no  desire  to  give  the  prov- 
ince a  bad  reputation  as  to  blights  and  pests. 
I  saw  no  evidences  of  them  on  either  fruit  or 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  91 

trees  —  but  I'll  wager  that  that  real-estate 
agent  will  never  again  introduce  his  friend  the 
" smoke  expert"  to  a  sympathetic  and  inquisi- 
tive visitor. 

So  it  was  wherever  I  went.  So  it  was  at 
home  in  the  country.  Real  estate  is  being 
traded  in  everywhere. 

A  few  months  ago  a  writer  in  the  "Toronto 
Globe"  stated  that  Western  Ontario  is  for 
sale.  About  the  same  time  a  writer  in  the 
"Saturday  Evening  Post"  showed  that  the 
American  corn  belt  is  all  for  sale.  People 
everywhere  are  ready  to  sell  at  a  profit  and 
move  on. 

The  result  of  all  this  was  to  fix  in  my  mind 
the  conviction  that  the  world  is  for  sale. 

One  morning  I  awoke  —  or  was  I  awake  ?  — 
and  found  the  world  marvellously  astir.  A 
huge  red  flag  hung  down  from  the  zenith  and 
a  jovial  auctioneer  with  the  moon  for  an  auc- 
tion block  was  about  to  offer  the  world  for 
sale.  Satan  had  foreclosed  his  mortgage,  and 
Chaos,  "The  Anarch  Old,"  was  looking  over 


92         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

the  property  as  a  prospective  buyer.  The 
Soul  of  Man,  troubled  and  confused,  was  also 
in  the  market  for  the  world  and  wondering 
if  the  only  price  he  could  offer  —  a  list  of  irk- 
some virtues  —  could  possibly  outweigh  the 
alluring,  shadowy,  jazz-time  pleasures  that 
his  opponent  would  flash  before  the  nations. 

Bringing  down  his  gavel  with  a  crash  that 
arrested  the  attention  of  the  universe,  the 
auctioneer  began  his  harangue. 

"Look  it  over,  gentlemen,  look  it  over! 
Here  is  the  greatest  bargain  ever  offered  for 
sale  —  a  perfect  prize  package  of  a  planet.  It 
has  been  in  existence  a  long  time  and  all  its 
possibilities  are  known.  It  is  a  perfect  location 
for  either  a  heaven  or  a  hell,  and  has  all  the 
natural  resources  needed  to  make  it  one  or  the 
other.  Its  history  shows  the  attempts  that 
have  been  made  in  both  directions.  Let  me 
recount  them  briefly.  First,  O  Chaos,  let  me 
address  myself  to  you. 

"This  world  has  just  had  a  fiercer  war  than 
any  one  thought  it  was  possible  for  man  to 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  93 

wage.  Millions  have  been  slaughtered,  mil- 
lions have  been  wounded  and  crippled,  mil- 
lions have  been  starved  to  death,  millions  have 
been  wasted  by  disease.  The  wonderful  baying 
of  the  hell-hounds  of  war  has  been  stilled,  but  a 
word  would  unleash  the  pack  and  they  would 
harry  man  through  air  and  earth  and  sea. 
Famine  and  Pestilence  are  feeding  fat  on  the 
nations,  and  Lust,  Greed,  and  Hate  are  revel- 
ling in  all  the  capitals.  To  anyone  wanting  to 
start  a  private  hell  for  his  own  amusement 
this  is  the  greatest  bargain  ever  offered.  The 
work  of  building  is  almost  complete.  All  that 
is  needed  is  a  little  imagination  and  a  consign- 
ment of  sulphur.  It  is  not  ever  necessary  to 
provide  a  match.  The  world  is  full  of  fools, 
both  high  and  low,  who  are  only  waiting  for 
a  chance  to  apply  the  match.  Take  my  word 
for  it,  0  Chaos,  you  will  never  again  have  such 
a  chance  to  start  a  summer  resort  of  your  own, 
so  consider  well  the  price  that  you  are  willing 
to  pay." 
Turning  to  the  Soul  of  Man,  who  had  been 


94         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

reduced  almost  to  despair  by  this  horrid  re- 
cital, the  face  of  the  auctioneer  glowed  like  the 
sun,  and  with  a  voice  as  musical  as  summer 
winds  in  the  elms  he  whispered: 

"O  Soul  of  Man,  why  art  thou  troubled? 
My  words  were  but  words  of  scorn  and  re- 
proof. Behold  now  this  world  with  the  eyes  of 
faith.  Look  at  the  fertile  fields,  flooded  with 
sunshine  —  the  rain-bearing  clouds  and  the 
mystery  of  growth.  Mark  the  little  homes  that 
dot  the  plains  and  cling  to  the  wooded  hills. 
Hear  the  laughter  of  children  and  the  song  of 
birds.  Even  the  war  was  rich  with  deeds  of 
heroic  sacrifice.  Charity,  Mercy,  and  Science 
are  striving  to  overtake  Famine  and  Pesti- 
lence. Brotherhood  waits  for  leadership. 
Truly  there  is  here  the  matter  for  a  new  earth 
that  will  be  a  new  heaven.  Consider  well  the 
price  that  you  are  willing  to  pay." 

Lifting  up  his  voice  till  the  universe  rang 
with  it,  the  auctioneer  shouted: 

"The  sale  is  now  on !  What  am  I  bid  for  this 
pendulous  planet  that  swings  forever  from  the 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  95 

throne  of  the  sun?  There  is  no  reserve  bid. 
The  sale  must  be  concluded  to-day.  What  am 
Ibid?" 

"Wealth!"  shouted  Chaos.  "Gold,  silver, 
paper,  unlimited  credit!" 

The  nations  roared  applause. 

"Contentment,"  offered  the  Soul  of  Man 
quietly. 

The  nations  jeered. 

Then  the  two  bidders  made  alternate  offers. 

Chaos  began: 

"Palaces!" 

"Homes." 

"Power!" 

"Brotherhood." 

"Idleness!" 

"Industry." 

"Extravagance!" 

"Thrift." 

"License!" 

"Order." 

While  the  bidding  proceeded,  tumult  broke 
out  among  the  nations.    Some  favored  one 


96         THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

bidder;  some  the  other.  As  the  tumult  grew, 
the  War  God,  who  always  walks  before  Chaos, 
tossed  his  plumed  helmet  and  marshalled  all 
his  enginery.  Once  more  his  sword  was  to  reap 
its  harvest. 

"The  Eternal,  to  prevent  such  horrid  fray, 
Hung  forth  in  heaven    his   golden   scales,   yet 

seen 
Betwixt  Astrea  and  the  Scorpion  sign, 
Wherein  all  things  created  first  he  weighed, 

...  In  these  he  put  two  weights, 
The  sequel  each  of  parting  and  of  fight; 
The  latter  quick  up-flew,  and  kicked  the  beam; 

.  .  .  The  fiend  looked  up  and  knew 
His  mounted  scale  above;  no  more;  but  fled 
Murmuring,  and  with  him  fled  the  shades  of 

night." 

The  great  auctioneer  brought  down  his 
gavel. 

"Sold  to  the  Soul  of  Man,  for  a  price  that 
he  can  well  afford  to  pay!" 

Then  I  was  awake,  indeed,  and  as  I  looked 
about  me  I  saw  the  fields  flooded  with  sun- 
shine, felt  the  caress  of  the  summer  breeze, 


A  WORLD  FOR  SALE  97 

and  heard  the  song  of  birds.    The  children 
were  shouting  at  their  play  —  and  the  home 
was  my  home. 
My  brothers,  we  have  a  good  bargain! 


CHAPTER  X 
ORGANIZED  FOR  PROFIT 

With  a  couple  of  chance  acquaintances  I  was 
discussing  everyday  activities  as  reported  in 
the  daily  papers.  A  quiet  man  with  a  poker 
face  was  listening  to  our  talk.  Suddenly  he 
contributed  a  remark: 

"This  country  is  going  to  hell  for  lack  of 
leadership." 

That  sounded  familiar.  It  occurred  to  me 
that  I  had  heard  the  remark  before.  I  had 
heard  it  even  in  Canada.  Shortly  afterwards 
I  learned  that  the  man  who  had  made  the 
remark  was  a  millionaire.  Consequently  his 
pontifical  utterance  did  not  surprise  me.  Mon- 
ied  men  really  feel  deeply  on  the  matter  — 
but  they  expect  some  one  else  to  give  the 
leadership  they  so  earnestly  want.  If  you  listen 
to  their  talk  you  will  find  that  they  give  about 
every  reason  for  the  lack  but  the  true  one. 


ORGANIZED  FOR  PROFIT         99 

The  people  lack  leadership  because  they  are 
not  candid  about  where  they  want  to  go. 
There  is  a  lot  of  talk  about  social  justice,  but 
justice  is  about  the  last  thing  that  many  people 
want.  In  fact,  they  seem  to  be  afraid  that 
they  are  going  to  get  it.  During  the  war,  when 
the  soldiers  were  fighting,  dying,  and  passing 
through  hell  generally,  those  who  stayed  at 
home  enjoyed  a  prosperity  that  never  was 
known  before.  Capital  made  such  profits  as 
never  were  known  before;  Labor  got  such 
wages  as  never  were  known  before;  farmers, 
miners,  fishermen,  lumbermen  —  men  of  all 
classes  enjoyed  such  prosperity  as  never  was 
known  before.  And  now  they  are  clamoring 
for  leaders  who  will  enable  them  to  keep  the 
blood-bought  riches  and  profits  and  the  wages 
they  got  in  the  world's  time  of  anguish.  They 
are  horrified  to  find  that  the  bloated,  un- 
healthy profits  of  war  are  losing  their  value 
through  the  operation  of  laws  of  compensa- 
tion more  inexorable  than  any  ever  devised 
by  man.   Although  the  Great  War  revealed 


too       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

the  heroism  and  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  in 
many,  it  aroused  the  selfishness  of  still  more. 
That  manufacturer  blurted  out  a  very  prev- 
alent conviction  when  he  said,  "Any  man  who 
did  n't  make  money  during  the  war  must  have 
had  something  wrong  with  him."  And  now 
these  people  are  clamoring  for  leaders  who 
will  protect  them  in  their  selfishness.  They 
want  to  be  led  into  a  beatific  era,  where  each 
will  get  more  than  his  share  of  the  good  things 
of  life.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the  big 
profiteers  are  the  only  ones  who  are  to  blame 
for  existing  conditions.  There  are  shoals  and 
swarms  of  little  profiteers  who  are  just  as  sel- 
fish and  rapacious  as  the  big  ones.  All  they 
lack  is  capacity  and  opportunity,  like  the  little 
devils  described  by  Kipling.   They 

"Weep  that  they  bin 
Too  small  to  sin  ! 
To  the  height  of  their  desire." 

Humanity  will  look  in  vain  for  true  leader- 
ship until  it  is  cleansed  of  its  selfishness. 
There  are  many  who  are  suffering  through 


ORGANIZED  FOR  PROFIT        101 

no  fault  of  their  own  —  many  who  gave, 
toiled,  and  sacrificed  so  that  freedom  might 
endure,  but  they  are  not  the  ones  whose  voices 
are  the  loudest  to-day.  They  believed  that 
an  era  of  justice  and  brotherly  love  would  fol- 
low victory.  To-day  they  are  bewildered  and 
stunned  to  find  that  their  sacrifices  were  ap- 
parently made  in  vain.  Many  of  the  returned 
soldiers  with  whom  I  have  talked  are  as  home- 
sick as  they  were  in  France  for  the  conditions 
they  left  behind  four  or  five  years  ago.  This 
home  land  of  insolent  wealth  and  noisy  grum- 
blings —  of  strife  and  turmoil  —  is  not  the 
land  for  whose  freedom  they  fought.  They 
find  it  hard  to  realize  that  while  they  were 
offering  their  lives  to  save  the  world,  the 
world  went  money-mad.  Can  they  be  blamed 
if  they  are  touched  with  discouragement  and 
disgust  ? 

At  the  present  time  there  is  much  in  the 
papers  about  the  reeducation  of  soldiers  to 
fit  them  for  a  place  in  civil  life.  Here  is  another 
case  where  we  are  in  danger  of  making  a  griev- 


102       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

ous  mistake.  There  is  need  of  reeducation, 
of  course,  but  the  soldiers  are  not  the  only  ones 
who  need  to  be  reeducated.  The  present  idea 
seems  to  be  that  the  soldiers  must  be  reedu- 
cated so  as  to  enable  them  to  follow  some  oc- 
cupation in  our  social  organization  as  it  now 
stands.  That  will  not  do,  my  masters!  It  is 
not  good  enough!  The  military  training  these 
men  have  had  educated  them  to  sacrifice 
everything  for  the  good  of  humanity  —  for  the 
protection  of  their  wives  and  families  and  for 
our  protection.  Now  we  propose  to  reeducate 
them  so  that  they  may  try  to  compete  with 
us  in  a  struggle  for  existence  that  taxes  the 
strength  and  resourcefulness  of  those  whose 
strength  is  unwounded  and  who  have  made  no 
sacrifices.  Just  think  about  it  for  a  minute. 
What  chance  would  our  reeducated  soldiers 
have  against  men  who  are  already  over-edu- 
cated along  these  lines,  and  whose  careers  have 
not  been  interrupted  by  the  need  of  making 
sacrifices  for  their  country?  Practically  none, 
and  it  will  be  a  poor  reward  to  offer  them  for 


ORGANIZED  FOR  PROFIT        103 

what  they  have  done,  and  are  doing,  to  push 
them  into  such  an  unequal  struggle. 

Every  day  it  is  becoming  more  apparent 
that  the  world  cannot  go  on  as  it  was.  Unless 
we  rid  ourselves  of  some  of  our  selfishness,  we 
shall  be  forced  to  face  more  grievous  problems 
than  we  are  facing  just  now.  The  soldier  ele- 
ment in  our  population  and  in  the  population 
of  the  world  will  be  too  great  to  be  absorbed 
readily  into  an  unchanged  civil  life.  Our  old 
god,  Profits,  will  be  dethroned,  no  matter  how 
devotedly  we  worship  him.  The  menace  of  a 
food  shortage  is  making  many  people  think 
more  clearly  than  ever  before,  and  with  the 
possibility  of  world-hunger  before  us  Prud- 
hon's  assertion  that  " profit  is  theft"  does  not 
look  nearly  so  anarchistic  as  it  did.  We  see 
that  every  man  should  be  rewarded  for  his  serv- 
ices, but  the  thought  that  any  man  should 
make  profits  when  all  are  struggling  to  bear  up 
under  accumulated  burdens  is  already  begin- 
ning to  provoke  rage.  We  admit  every  man's 
right  to  make  a  living,  but  doubt  his  right  to 


io4       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

make  a  fortune.  Our  reeducation  has  begun, 
and  we  must  see  to  it  that  it  goes  through 
properly.  We  must  learn  that  success  should 
depend  on  public  service  rather  than  on  pri- 
vate greed.  Not  until  we  have  learned  that  can 
we  expect  our  soldiers  to  reenter  civil  life,  and 
submit  to  its  workaday  burdens.  And  there 
will  be  no  place  in  a  reeducated  world  for 
parasites  or  people  who  will  expect  to  live 
through  a  claim  on  the  services  of  others. 
Though  the  subject  is  serious  enough,  one  of 
Edward  Lear's  mocking  limericks  pops  into 
my  head  as  a  symbolical  description  of  the 
new  state  of  affairs  that  seems  inevitable: 

" There  was  an  old  man  who  said,  'Well! 
Will  nobody  answer  this  bell? 
I  have  pulled  day  and  night 
Till  my  hair  was  grown  white. 
But  nobody  answers  this  bell.'" 

I  am  afraid  that  the  people  who  expect  to 
get  their  living  simply  by  ringing  a  bell  will 
do  more  than  get  white  hair.  t 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED 

One  hates  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
promulgation  of  a  new  law,  especially  when 
temperamentally  in  accord  with  the  poet 
Carman  who 

"Could  always  be  at  home 
Just  beyond  the  reach  of  rule." 

But  the  new  law  is  already  in  existence,  and 
as  all  I  propose  to  do  is  modestly  to  discover 
its  operations,  I  feel  less  compunction  in  the 
matter.  But  before  making  the  announce- 
ment it  is  necessary  to  clear  the  ground  by 
calling  attention  to  another  law  that  is  appar- 
ently producing  the  chaotic  conditions  that 
are  causing  so  much  alarm  at  the  present  time. 
Then  the  new  law  may  be  offered  as  a  balm 
that  is  to  cure  existing  evils.  Having  reas- 
sured the  mind  of  the  reader  we  may  now 
proceed. 


106       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

Somewhere  in  his  voluminous  writings  Karl 
Marx  makes  the  arresting  statement  that  "  all 
capitalistic  organizations  carry  within  them- 
selves the  elements  of  their  own  destruction." 
(Solomon  said  long  before  Marx,  "The  pros- 
perity of  fools  shall  destroy  them.")  It  might 
be  demonstrated  that  the  destroying  element 
is  "greed"  for  wealth  and  power,  but  it  is 
enough  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
work  of  destruction  is  at  present  in  progress. 
Every  morning  our  newspapers  are  calling 
attention  to  the  fact  that  political  parties  are 
destroying  themselves  through  lust  for  power 
and  because  they  are  dominated  by  the  forces 
of  organized  Greed. 

Capital  is  at  present  in  a  parlous  condition 
because  it  is  suspected  of  greedy  profiteering 
and  the  plain  people  are  in  the  mood  to  bring 
it  to  book. 

Labor,  that  was  enabled  to  organize  be- 
cause of  the  work  done  by  Capital  in  central- 
izing industry  for  the  purpose  of  increasing 
profits,  is  in  danger  of  destroying  itself  by  its 


A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED    107 

exactions,  by  general  strikes,  and  by  making 
labor  conditions  in  the  cities  so  remunerative 
and  attractive  that  no  one  wants  to  stay  on 
the  farms  to  do  the  necessary  but  heavy  and 
mussy  work  of  food  production. 

There  are  even  those  who  point  out  that  the 
churches  are  destroying  their  usefulness  by  a 
rage  for  over-organization  and  financial  stabil- 
ity, but  that  is  a  question  that  no  cautious 
man  would  care  to  review. 

Now  the  cities,  those  organized  centres  of 
humanity,  appear  to  be  passionately  intent  on 
committing  suicide.  In  this  they  are  receiving 
material  aid  from  governments,  but  it  seems 
useless  for  any  one  to  offer  a  protest.  When 
a  delegation  of  farmers  recently  waited  on 
Governor  Smith,  of  New  York,  to  protest 
against  the  adoption  of  daylight  saving  legis- 
lation, he  rebuked  them  severely  for  their  class 
selfishness.  No  one  seems  to  realize  that  day- 
light saving  is  simply  a  gesture  in  the  progress 
of  city  suicide.  The  few  laborers  to  be  found 
on  the  farms  naturally  want  to  take  advantage 


108       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

of  the  daylight  saving  law,  with  the  result  that 
they  are  idle  in  the  morning  hours  when  the 
dew  makes  impracticable  the  cultivation  of 
root  crops,  corn,  etc.,  and  the  gathering  of  hay 
and  sheaves.  And  besides  being  idle  at  the 
expense  of  the  farmers  in  the  morning,  they 
are  idle  for  their  own  enjoyment  in  the  late 
afternoon  and  evening  when  field  work  can  be 
attended  to  most  satisfactorily.  Besides,  the 
farmer  is  obliged  to  do  his  own  milking  and 
chores  while  his  highly  paid  hired  man  goes  to 
town  to  enjoy  the  movies.  The  result  is  that 
farmers  are  forced  to  limit  their  enterprises  to 
the  amount  of  work  that  can  be  done  by  them- 
selves and  their  families.  In  many  cases  it 
would  not  pay  them  to  employ  a  hired  man. 
Indeed,  cases  have  come  under  my  personal 
observation  where  farmers  found  it  more  prac- 
ticable to  sell  their  farms  and  hire  out  with 
farmers  who  thought  they  could  contend  with 
the  new  adverse  conditions.  And  presently 
these  farmers  who  hired  out  followed  the  gen- 
eral trend  of  the  rural  population  and  moved 


A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED    109 

to  the  cities  where  they  could  have  shorter 
hours  and  more  attractive  conditions. 

The  "New  York  Sun  and  Herald"  had  an 
editorial  recently  in  which  it  spoke  of  the 
farmers  going  on  strike.  They  are  not  going  on 
strike,  but  they  are  limiting  productions  to 
what  they  can  do  themselves  —  and  the  result 
is  the  same.  They  are  not  doing  this  from  de- 
sire, but  through  the  compulsion  of  circum- 
stances. 

Daylight  saving,  however,  is  only  one  of 
the  many  methods  employed  to  uproot  hu- 
manity from  the  soil  and  enable  the  cities  to 
commit  suicide  by  starvation. 

Critics  of  the  tariff  have  shown  how  the  pro- 
tection of  manufactures  causes  higher  wages 
to  prevail  in  the  cities  and  withdraws  men 
from  the  productions  of  food.  Agricultural 
education  and  the  farmers'  movement  have 
tended  to  centre  the  attention  of  the  farmer 
on  money-making  —  rather  than  on  home- 
building  —  and  that  is  disastrous.  The  farmer 
is  keeping  books,  and  as  home-making  cannot 


no       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER  , 

be  expressed  either  by  single  entry  or  double 
entry,  he  applies  the  dollar  test  to  everything 
with  the  result  that  in  many  places  food  crops 
are  being  discarded  for  profitable  cash  crops, 
such  as  tobacco,  sugar-beets,  etc. 

The  farmer  is  finding  out  what  crops  do 
not  pay  in  dollars  and  is  discarding  them  — 
thereby  increasing  the  various  shortages.  In 
order  to  make  him  efficient  in  this  destructive 
work,  governments  are  imposing  income  taxes 
and  compelling  the  farmer  to  keep  books.  And 
no  one  is  calling  attention  to  the  basic  fact 
that  farming  is  above  all  a  home-making  busi- 
ness and  that  money-making  is  secondary. 
Our  pioneer  fathers  raised  all  crops  for  their 
own  use,  with  the  result  that  they  had  plenty 
and  a  surplus  to  feed  the  cities  of  those  days. 

The  whole  tendency  of  the  time  is  to  make 
the  country  more  like  the  cities  —  to  give  the 
farm  city  advantages.  Cities  are  not  content 
with  increasing  their  wealth  and  population. 
They  promote  radial  railways  and  manu- 
facture automobiles  to  bring  the  farmers  to  the 


A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED    in 

cities.  They  educate  them  to  patronize  the 
movies  and  follow  the  fashions.  Every  day 
the  farms  are  becoming  more  like  the  cities. 
Farm  children  are  given  city  educations  and 
they  develop  city  tastes.  The  world  is  mad  on 
the  building  of  cities.  Some  months  ago  an 
enthusiast  sitting  in  the  chair  beside  me  in  the 
lobby  of  a  Toronto  hotel  showed  me  how  the 
development  of  hydro-electric  power  on  the 
Niagara  River  and  the  St.  Lawrence  would 
finally  transform  New  York  State  and  the 
Province  of  Ontario  into  one  vast  city  from 
Manhattan  to  Port  Arthur.  And  he  added 
triumphantly: 

"Then  we  could  dictate  to  the  world." 
It  sounded  very  progressive  and  alluring,  but 
as  I  was  waiting  for  the  dining-room  to  open, 
the  promptings  of  appetite  led  me  to  wonder 
how  this  great  city  of  the  future  is  to  be  fed. 
The  simple  fact  is  that  the  country  is  get- 
ting so  like  the  cities  that  it  is  stopping  the 
production  of  food,  and  unless  the  tide  turns 
the  cities  and  the  country  will  commit  suicide 


ii2       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

together.  But  as  indicated  in  a  previous  chap- 
ter there  is  a  door  of  hope.  Our  fathers  laid  the 
foundations  of  a  country  civilization,  richer  and 
more  satisfying  than  any  city  civilization  the 
world  has  known.  If  we  turn  in  time  and  build 
on  that  foundation  the  predictions  of  all  the 
prophets  will  be  confuted. 

Now  the  time  has  come  to  announce  the 
new  law,  the  law  of  reversal  which  has  been 
touched  upon  in  a  previous  chapter.  It  has 
already  begun  to  operate  and  all  that  remains 
is  for  the  majority  to  fall  in  line  with  it. 

And  the  majority  will  do  this. 

In  the  great  crises  of  the  past  it  was  pre- 
dicted that  "a  remnant  will  be  saved." 

The  time  has  come  to  announce  the  reversal 
of  this  law  and  proclaim  that  "a  majority  will 
be  saved." 

If  you  stop  to  weigh  recent  events,  you  will 
find  that  there  is  a  sound  reason  for  this  proc- 
lamation. Since  the  signing  of  the  armistice 
there  have  been  strikes,  both  authorized  and 
"outlaw,"  that  interfered  with  the  rights  of 


A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED    113 

the  majority  of  the  people.  And  the  people 
did  not  endure  them  tamely.  In  Winnipeg, 
Seattle,  New  Jersey,  and  elsewhere  the  people 
undertook  to  do  the  work  that  was  being 
stopped  by  the  strikers.  In  almost  all  these 
cases  the  volunteer  workers  went  too  far  in 
their  manifestations  —  forgot  the  need  of  ad- 
hering to  legal  methods.  But  they  made  it 
quite  clear  that  the  big,  quaking,  foolish  ma- 
jority is  no  longer  in  the  mood  to  put  up  with 
the  tyranny  of  noisy  minorities.  All  strikes 
and  disturbances  in  the  transaction  of  busi- 
ness cause  more  trouble  and  suffering  to  the 
ordinary  citizens  than  to  those  who  are  di- 
rectly involved.  And  experience  has  shown 
that  the  ordinary  people  of  Canada  and  the 
United  States  are  not  ordinary.  On  the  bat- 
tle-fields of  Europe  the  privates  on  many 
occasions  showed  themselves  as  resourceful  as 
their  officers  and  as  ready  to  cope  with  difficult 
problems.  Those  whose  affairs  are  being  inter- 
fered with  by  men  who  depart  from  constitu- 
tional methods  to  redresstheir  grievances  are 


n4       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

not  an  ignorant  and  oppressed  mob,  but  men 
who  have  been  accustomed  all  their  lives  to 
freedom  and  legal  methods.  They  are  not 
lacking  in  courage  or  initiative,  and  are  en- 
tirely capable  of  calling  "bluffs"  of  all  kinds. 
It  so  happens  that  the  "bluff"  of  some  irre- 
sponsible agitators  is  the  first  that  has  been 
forced  on  their  attention,  and  their  response  is 
the  most  cheering  news  we  have  had  for  many 
a  day.  It  may  mean  the  beginning  of  a  better 
era.  Most  of  the  wrongs  from  which  strug- 
gling humanity  suffers  are  due  to  "bluffs"  — 
some  of  them  very  respectable  and  imposing 
—  and  if  the  people  start  to  call  them  we  shall 
have  a  notable  house-cleaning.  Moreover,  all 
these  can  be  called  without  departing  from 
the  constitutional  methods  established  by  our 
fathers,  and  which  our  sons  so  heroically  de- 
fended. 

All  this  indicates  that  after  the  cities,  Big 
Business,  Labor,  and  even  the  Farmers'  Move- 
ment have  succumbed  to  the  present  passion 
for  suicide,  the  majority  will  be  saved. 


A  MAJORITY  WILL  BE  SAVED    115 

In  the  days  when  salvation  was  only  for  the 
remnant,  that  remnant  represented  the  minor- 
ity that  stood  for  the  rights  of  humanity.  The 
majority  stood  for  autocratic  or  theocratic 
power  and  destroyed  itself  by  its  arrogance 
and  greed. 

The  birth  of  Democracy  changed  all  this. 
The  majority  now  stands  for  the  rights  of 
man — of  the  plain  citizen.  Because  there  was 
so  much  to  learn  before  Democracy  could 
realize  its  possibilities  we  have  been  tyran- 
nized over  by  minorities  —  bosses,  bureau- 
cracies, trusts,  labor  organizations,  and  other 
forms  of  absolutism.  But  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  stand  for  individual  rights  and  individ- 
ual initiative. 

The  average  citizen  of  the  new  world 

"Stays  to  his  home  an'  looks  arter  his  folks; 
He  draws  his  furrer  es  straight  es  he  can, 
An'  into  nobody's  tater-patch  pokes." 

All  of  them  may  not  be  drawing  furrows; 
some  of  them  may  be  engaged  in  non-essential 
occupations;  but  their  instinct  is  the  same.  If 


u6       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

they  are  left  alone  they  will  leave  other  people 
alone.  And  there  is  evidence  that  if  they  are 
not  left  alone  something  is  going  to  happen. 
Le  Bon  points  out  that  the  inert  mass  of  the 
population  represents  the  soul  of  a  nation. 
If  this  is  true  the  outlook  is  all  that  can  be 
wished.  In  the  new  world  there  is  an  instinct 
for  order  that  expresses  itself  sometimes  with- 
out waiting  for  the  processes  of  law.  This 
impatience  is  regrettable,  but  the  attitude  is 
admirable.  It  indicates  that  the  day  of  the 
remnant  is  passed  and  that  the  majority  is  to 
come  to  its  own.  The  future  may  have  trouble 
in  store  for  the  profiteers,  agitators,  bureau- 
crats, and  others  who  are  wailing  that  the 
world  is  going  to  the  devil,  but  the  great  law 
of  reversal  is  in  operation  and 

"A  majority  will  be  saved." 


CHAPTER  XII 
PRINCE  KROPOTKIN'S  COW 

Some  of  my  experiences  led  me  to  wonder  if 
there  is  a  correspondence  course  for  economists 
and  statesmen.  Anyway,  I  have  been  coming 
into  contact  with  thinkers,  the  perfection  of 
whose  theories  can  only  be  accounted  for  on 
the  hypothesis  that  they  are  graduates  of 
a  correspondence  school.  They  have  world- 
shaping  plans  that  could  only  be  excused  on 
the  plea  that  those  who  propound  them  either 
know  God's  plan  or  have  a  better  one.  Only 
a  correspondence  school  could  give  a  man  such 
sublime  self-confidence.  Still,  the  reading  of 
many  books  on  economics,  and  class  papers, 
would  have  much  the  same  effect  as  a  corre- 
spondence course,  and  that  probably  accounts 
for  the  finished  thinkers  that  are  forever  put- 
ting one  down  in  arguments. 

But  this  is  a  tough  old  world  and  politics 


n8        THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

is  a  science  too  human  to  be  put  into  books. 
The  economists  take  no  account  of  "human 
cussedness"  or  the  instinct  to  do  anything 
except  what  the  wise  of  the  world  say  that  we 
should  do.  No  matter  how  beneficent  your 
theory  may  be,  we  will  have  none  of  it — and  a 
good  thing  it  is  for  the  world  that  we  will  not. 
Still,  the  correspondence-school  statesmen 
and  economists  are  so  much  a  part  of  the  life 
of  to-day,  with  its  agitations  and  movements 
and  tiresome  futilities,  that  one  must  give 
them  some  attention.  The  mildest  of  these 
world-shapers  are  clamoring  for  the  national- 
ization of  everything  from  railroads  to  cran- 
berry bogs.  Indeed,  I  have  met  with  thinkers 
to  whom  all  this  would  be  merely  a  prelimi- 
nary step.  I  have  heard  it  gravely  suggested, 
or  rather  vehemently  suggested,  that  things 
will  not  be  right  in  this  world  until  all  the  in- 
equalities due  to  education  and  variations  of 
brain  power  are  also  wiped  out.  This  would 
give  us  equality  with  a  vengeance :  the  kind  of 
blessed  equality  we  have  in  the  stable  at 


PRINCE  KROPOTKIX'S  COW      119 

home,  where  the  cattle  are  all  chained  so  that 
the  energetic  red  cow  cannot  get  more  than 
her  share  of  the  food.  The  simple  fact  is  that 
in  the   new  world  social   theories  are  being 
reduced  to  an  absurdity,  even  before  being 
applied.  This  is  the  land  of  violent  contrasts, 
and  the  programme  I  laid  out  for  myself  has 
enabled  me  to  see  some  of  these  contrasts  at 
their  sharpest.  I  have  made  it  a  point  to  hunt 
up  friends  of  my  youth  who  have  either  grown 
up  with  the  country  or  have  gone  down  under 
its  progress.    In  one  city  on  the  Canadian 
prairies  I  found  a  friend  so  prosperous  that  he 
was  living  in  the  almost  sybaritic  luxury  of  a 
great  hotel  of  the  kind  that  show  how  rail- 
roading pays  in  Canada.   Another  friend  was 
"down  and  out"  in  the  same  city,  and  lending 
an  attentive  ear  to  the  wildest  kind  of  propa- 
ganda.   Being  an  old  friend,  the  rich  man 
poured  forth  the  story  of  his  prosperity  and  his 
wrath  against  those  who  are  hampering  capital 
and  threatening  to  put  an  end  to  progress. 
Moved  by  the  same  bond  of  sacred  friendship, 


120       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

the  poor  man  told  of  the  greed  and  rapacity  of 
which  he  had  been  the  victim.  The  poor  man 
had  lacked  what  another  friend  called  "the 
monetary  clutch,"  and  while  he  had  seen 
wealth  all  about  him,  had  been  unable  either 
"to  have  or  to  hold."  How  would  it  be  possi- 
ble for  any  one  to  hold  the  scales  between 
these  two  men?  I  did  n't  try.  I  passed  on  to 
another  city,  where  the  same  condition  devel- 
oped in  another  way.  An  old  friend  took  me  to 
his  club,  where  I  enjoyed  luncheon  with  a  num- 
ber of  men  who  were  prosperous  and  satisfied. 
A  few  hours  later  I  accidentally  found  myself 
at  a  gathering  of  city  employees  who  were  pre- 
paring for  a  strike.  They  advocated  direct 
action  with  guns.  "Why  not?"  they  asked. 
"The  Governments  of  the  world  are  settling 
their  differences  with  guns  and  high  explo- 
sives and  why  should  n't  the  down-trodden 
use  the  same  method?" 

It  is  almost  certain  that  the  social  problems 
pressing  for  settlement  will  be  settled  here  first. 
In  one  of  the  old  lands  a  poet  wrote: 


PRINCE  KROPOTKIX'S  COW      121 

"Lazarus  sits  as  he  sat  through  history, 

Through  pride  of  heroes  and  pomp  of  kings, 
At  the  rich  man's  gate,  the  eternal  mystery, 
Receiving  his  evil  things." 

In  that  land  I  have  seen  the  people  of  place 
and  power  pass  through  the  streets  entirely 
indifferent  to  the  misery  by  which  they  were 
surrounded,  while  those  who  were  in  misery 
were  so  accustomed  to  that  condition  that 
they  looked  at  their  oppressors  with  dull 
apathy.  Here  it  is  different;  this  is  a  new 
country.  Dives  and  Lazarus  are  both  here, 
but  they  have  known  one  another  all  their 
lives.  They  were  brought  up  in  the  same  town 
and  played  with  the  same  pup.  Lazarus  re- 
ceived the  same  public  school  education  as 
Dives,  and  perhaps  beat  him  in  his  classes. 
He  is  lacking  in  respect  for  him,  and  if  there  is 
any  way  by  which  he  can  force  a  showdown 
while  Dives  is  here  —  before  he  is  in  torment 
—  he  is  going  to  force  it. 

But  no  matter  what  changes  may  be 
adopted,  whether  revolutionary  or  reaction- 


122       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

ary,  there  is  an  irreducible  minimum  of  work 
that  must  be  done.  The  world  must  be  fed 
and  clothed. 

Noticing  that  much  is  made  of  providing 
milk  for  children  and  invalids  whenever  a 
general  strike  is  in  progress,  it  seemed  worth 
while  to  see  how  the  best  thinkers  propose  to 
deal  with  the  matter  in  the  new  world  they 
propose  to  give  us.  Remembering  that  a  col- 
lege president  to  whom  I  had  mentioned  the 
matter  had  given  me  Prince  Kropotkin's 
"Conquest  of  Bread,"  I  turned  to  it  for  in- 
formation regarding  the  subject  of  milk.  As 
might  be  expected  he  deals  with  it  in  the 
vague  way  of  people  who  have  no  personal 
knowledge  of  cows.  Just  because  wheat  can 
be  produced  by  spurts  of  labor  at  the  proper 
seasons  and  requires  no  care  while  growing  and 
maturing,  he  apparently  assumed  that  the 
milk  supply  could  be  secured  in  the  same  way. 
Dealing  with  the  provisioning  of  the  city  of 
Paris  under  the  anarchistic  Commune,  he 
sums  up  tire  whole  matter  as  follows : 


PRINCE  KROPOTKIN'S  COW      123 

"A  population  of  three  and  a  half  million 
must  have  at  least  1,200,000  adult  men  and 
as  many  women  capable  of  work.  Well,  then, 
to  give  bread  and  meat  to  all,  it  would  need 
seventeen  and  a  half  days  a  year  per  man. 
Add  three  million  work-days,  or  double  that 
number  if  you  like,  in  order  to  obtain  milk. 
That  will  make  twenty-five  work-days  of  five 
hours  in  all  —  nothing  more  than  a  little  pleas- 
urable country  exercise  —  to  obtain  the  three 
principal  products:  bread,  meat,  and  milk,  the 
three  products  which,  after  housing,  cause  daily 
anxiety  to  nine  tenths  of  mankind.  And  yet 
—  let  us  not  tire  of  repeating  —  these  are  not 
fancy  dreams." 

One  night  before  leaving  home,  I  had  to 
milk  the  cows,  owing  to  an  impending  ball 
game,  and  while  attending  to  this  chore  I  fell 
to  thinking  of  the  milk  supply  under  Commu- 
nistic or  Soviet  rule.  These  poor  people  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  cows  must  be  milked 
every  day  and  twice  a  day.  Under  the  five- 
hour-a-day  rule  the  milkers  would  be  different 


i24       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

every  morning  and  evening,  and  if  the  neces- 
sary twenty-five  days  of  work  were  distrib- 
uted over  the  year,  it  is  probable  that  the 
milkers  would  be  changed  every  few  days. 
Any  dairyman  will  tell  you  that  with  such 
treatment  the  cows  would  probably  go  dry  in 
a  few  weeks.  Even  if  they  did  n't  object  to 
the  frequent  change  of  the  milkers,  their  flow 
of  milk  would  be  greatly  diminished,  as  they 
are  not  fond  of  strangers  fussing  with  them. 
The  truth  of  this  was  brought  home  to  me 
by  the  fact  that  the  red  cow  kicked  at  me 
when  I  sat  down  beside  her  and  came  to  rest 
with  her  foot  firmly  planted  on  my  big  toe.  If 
that  happened  to  me,  what  would  have  hap- 
pened to  some  one  taking  "  a  little  pleasurable 
country  exercise."  But  perhaps  Prince  Kro- 
potkin  had  in  mind  some  strain  of  cow  that 
I  have  not  yet  heard  of.  He  must  know  of 
some  kind  of  cow  that  will  give  up  her  year's 
production  of  milk  in  a  pleasurable  round  of 
five-hour  milkings.  Yet  it  is  on  the  teachings 
of  such  men  that  the  workers  of  the  world 


PRINCE  KROPOTKIN'S  COW      125 

depend  for  plans  to  right  their  wrongs  and 
make  the  world  an  ideal  place  to  live  in.  That 
the  condition  of  the  workers  should  be  im- 
proved every  thinking  man  must  admit,  but 
they  will  find  experience  more  helpful  than 
the  theories  of  dreamers.  Their  present  plans 
not  only  assume  that  human  nature  can  be 
changed  by  a  revolution,  but  that  cow  nature 
can  also  be  changed. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

OLD  HOME  WEEK 

Is  n't  it  about  time  we  had  an  "Old  Home 
Week"  for  ideas?  For  the  past  few  years  our 
thoughts,  quite  naturally  and  rightly,  have 
been  abroad,  and  we  have  been  grappling  with 
world  problems  because  they  were  more 
vital  to  us  than  the  problems  of  our  every 
day  lives.  But  a  time  has  come  when  we 
can  safely  come  back  to  our  individual  in- 
terests. 

Just  now  I  am  inclined  to  sympathize  with 
the  plain  citizen  who  recently  found  himself 
obliged  to  spend  an  evening  with  a  number 
of  high-thinking  friends  who  were  having  an 
improving  conversation  about  world  affairs. 
While  the  high  talk  was  in  progress  the  plain 
man  was  examining  his  rough  and  toil-gnarled 
hands,  and  he  took  advantage  of  a  lull  in  the 
conversation  to  ask: 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  127 

"Can  any  of  you  fellows  give  me  a  real  and 
sure  cure  for  warts?" 

It  was  a  dreadful  anticlimax,  but  it  ex- 
pressed a  feeling  of  weariness  with  great  things 
that  is  becoming  very  common.  We  are  in 
need  of  a  mental  rest.  As  Bill  Nye  phrased  it, 
we  are  in  danger  of  " spraining  our  thinkers" 
by  grappling  with  things  that  are  beyond  our 
grasp.  Every  morning  the  papers  have  articles 
about  such  subjects  as  "A  League  of  Nations 
to  enforce  World  Peace,"  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 
In  order  to  deal  with  such  things  intelligently 
we  must  think  for  the  planet.  A  country 
or  an  empire  is  no  longer  big  enough  for 
us.  Every  scheme  for  the  good  of  humanity 
is  a  world  scheme,  and  the  world  must  be 
organized  to  fit  it.  No  wonder  the  plain  man 
loses  his  grip  on  it  all  and  begins  to  think 
about  his  warts. 

The  curse  of  the  present  time  is  organiza- 
tion. Our  civilization  has  woven  about  itself 
a  web  of  organizations  that  will  destroy  it 
as  certainly  as  the  poisoned  shirt  of  Nessus 


128        THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

destroyed  Hercules.  It  is  organization  that 
makes  Business  Success  possible,  and  it  is 
under  the  exactions  of  Business  Success  that 
the  whole  world  is  writhing.  Much,  if  not  all, 
of  the  present-day  unrest  can  be  traced  back 
to  organized  greed  —  either  to  the  greed  of 
capitalists  or  the  greed  of  classes.  By  organiz- 
ing they  get  power,  and  when  they  get  power 
they  abuse  it  to  gratify  their  own  selfishness. 
The  trouble  is  not  due  to  the  principle  of 
organization,  but  to  the  fact  that  we  have 
allowed  organization  to  degenerate  into  con- 
spiracy. And  conspiracy  would  not  be  possible 
without  secrecy.  If  every  organization  formed 
under  the  protection  of  that  one  big  organiza- 
tion, the  Government,  of  which  we  are  all  a 
part,  were  subjected  to  a  publicity  as  pitiless 
as  the  Day  of  Judgment,  we  would  have  no 
cases  of  three  hundred  and  ten  per  cent  and 
over.  And  I  can  see  no  sound  reason  why  the 
workings  of  business  and  the  operations  of 
capital  generally  should  not  be  subject  to  the 
closest  public  scrutiny.    The  Government  is 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  129 

forced  to  do  business  in  public,  under  the  con- 
stant criticism  of  a  hostile  Opposition,  and 
yet  it  manages  to  get  along.  Even  kings  and 
presidents  live  in  the  white  light  that  beats 
upon  a  throne,  and  every  act  that  affects  the 
welfare  of  citizens  is  open  to  examination.  But 
the  Kings  of  Industry  and  all  the  operations  of 
Big  Business  must  be  shrouded  in  darkness 
arid  mystery.  Nonsense!  Honest  business  can 
bear  the  light  of  day  just  as  well  as  honest 
government.  Our  Captains  of  Industry  all 
claim  to  be  serving  the  public.  That  is  the 
excuse  for  the  privileges  they  demand.  Then 
why  not  let  us  see  how  they  are  serving  it?  Is 
it  that  they  are  too  modest?  I  am  afraid  their 
modesty  is  much  like  that  of  Artemus  Ward's 
noble  Red  Man  who  stole  a  blanket  and  a 
bottle  of  whiskey  and  then  rushed  whooping 
to  the  wilderness  to  conceal  his  emotion.  Our 
Kings  of  Big  Business  are  very  anxious  to  con- 
ceal their  emotion  —  and  other  things.  It  is 
true  that  they  do  a  great  service  in  building 
up  our  countries;  but  the  difficulty  is  that 


i3o       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

they  want  the  title  to  all  the  buildings  in 
their  own  names. 

It  does  n't  seem  to  be  quite  right  to  be 
talking  about  organizations  and  big  organizers 
this  way.  I  know  that  a  great  many  people 
will  be  offended  because  they  are  quite  sure 
they  will  never  get  to  heaven  unless  they  are 
organized  and  belong  to  exactly  the  right  or- 
ganization. Nevertheless  and  notwithstand- 
ing, I  repeat  the  assertion  that  organiza- 
tion is  the  curse  of  our  time  —  though  it 
should  be  a  blessing.  All  organization  that  is 
secret  in  its  operations  is  a  menace  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people  and  should  have  the  light 
turned  in  on  it.  It  is  in  secrecy  that  abnormal 
profits  are  piled  up.  If  a  cheese  factory  can  be 
run  with  the  fullest  publicity  and  yet  make  a 
decent  success,  I  fail  to  see  why  a  cloth  factory 
or  shoe  factory  should  not  be  run  on  the  same 
basis.  We  are  allowing  ourselves  to  be  bluffed 
by  the  leaders  of  Big  Business  and  we  should 
be  ashamed  of  ourselves.  Few  of  the  men  we 
are  cringing  before  have   any  real   ability. 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  131 

They  employ  it.  All  they  have  is  a  ruthless 
greed,  and  as  ninety  per  cent  fail  it  is  prob- 
able that  most  of  the  ten  per  cent  who  succeed 
owe  their  success  to  luck.  Turn  in  the  light  on 
the  whole  lot !  We  can  then  do  honor  to  those 
who  are  conducting  a  fair  business  and  render- 
ing service  for  the  rewards  they  are  taking  — 
and  we  can  attend  to  the  others.  Implacable 
publicity  would  probably  do  more  to  correct 
the  high  cost  of  living  than  anything  else. 
And  no  organization  should  be  allowed  to  exist 
without  the  fullest  publicity  regarding  all  its 
actions. 

Before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  Judge 
Brandeis,  of  the  United  States  Superior  Court, 
wrote  a  paper  about  "The  Curse  of  Bigness," 
which  I  would  like  to  re-read  just  now  if  I 
could  only  remember  who  borrowed  it  from 
me.  It  is  rather  amusing  to  remember  that 
he  was  dealing  with  trifling  little  matters  such 
as  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  railroad  merg- 
ers, industrial  corporations,  trusts,  and  such 
things.  Compared  with  the  schemes  that  are 


132       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

in  the  air  today  they  were  like  nursery  games. 
Yet  he  argued  with  much  logic  that  when 
organizations  get  beyond  a  certain  size  they 
become  inefficient  and  wasteful.  Instead  of 
serving  the  purpose  for  which  they  were 
organized  they  stifle  progress  and  develop- 
ment. Big  organizations  do  not  encourage 
new  ideas  as  little  ones  do.  Being  beyond 
competition,  they  become  sluggish  and  reac- 
tionary. I  cannot  help  wondering  if  we  shall 
not  have  the  same  difficulty  with  the  big 
schemes  that  are  being  promoted  just  now. 
After  all  they  will  have  to  be  run  by  human 
beings,  and  there  is  a  limit  to  human  powers. 
Judge  Brandeis  showed  that  business  schemes 
could  become  too  big  for  even  the  colossal 
business  brain  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  and  it 
is  just  possible  that  there  maybe  schemes  of 
statecraft  too  big  for  the  brains  of  Lloyd 
George  and  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  others  who 
are  grappling  with  them.  And  the  trouble  is 
that  we  are  all  grappling  with  them  and  over- 
looking the  fact  that  the  biggest  achieve- 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  133 

ment  possible  to  democracy  is  to  give  every 
individual  freedom  to  direct  his  own  affairs. 
At  the  present  time  people  have  altogether 
too  many  ideas  about  fixing  up  the  world, 
and  too  few  ideas  about  the  homely  tasks 
of  ordinary  citizenship.  Let  us  call  in  our 
far-reaching  thoughts  and  see  what  we  can 
find  to  do  right  at  home.  If  all  of  us  would 
do  that,  the  need  for  world-shaping  schemes 
would  probably  disappear. 

I  am  afraid  there  is  another  check  on  big 
schemes  that  is  being  overlooked.  Even  before 
the  war  Captains  of  Industry  were  finding  it 
hard  to  get  men  for  their  higher  command. 
Only  the  other  day  I  read  an  article  which 
bemoaned  the  lack  of  men  capable  of  filling 
five  thousand  and  ten  thousand  dollar  a  year 
jobs.  It  was  asserted  that  jobs  of  this  kind  are 
going  begging  because  men  of  the  right  capac- 
ity cannot  be  found.  There  are  too  many  men 
who  are  fitted  for  ordinary  routine  jobs,  but 
only  now  and  then  is  it  possible  to  find  men 
fitted  for  big  executive  jobs.  When  the  work 


i34       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

of  reconstruction  is  undertaken  in  earnest,  it 
will  probably  be  found  that  the  dearth  of  the 
right  kind  of  men  is  greater  than  ever.  The 
war  called  for  just  this  kind  of  men  and  they 
have  been  destroyed  by  the  thousand.  Even 
those  who  had  it  in  them  to  do  great  executive 
work,  and  were  not  fated  to  lay  down  their 
lives  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  have  had  their 
energies  turned  into  other  channels,  and  it  is 
possible  that  many  of  them  will  not  be  able  to 
resume  work  where  they  left  off.  The  best 
brains  of  the  rising  generation  have  been  di- 
verted by  the  war,  and  the  supply  of  compe- 
tent executives  is  likely  to  prove  smaller  than 
ever,  just  at  the  time  when  schemes  are  devel- 
oping that  will  require  them  more  than  ever. 
It  is  easy  enough  to  find  dreamers  who  can 
think  out  schemes  for  the  benefit  of  human- 
ity, but  it  is  very  hard  to  find  men  with  the 
necessary  executive  ability  to  put  them  into 
force.  It  is  quite  possible  that  we  must  give  up 
some  of  our  finest  dreams  for  the  lack  of  the 
right  kind  of  men  to  carry  them  out.  Human- 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  135 

ity's  losses  in  material  wealth  and  man-power 
may  be  estimated,  but  its  loss  in  mental  and 
spiritual  force  is  beyond  computation.  In  the 
meantime  the  big  ideas  are  being  pushed  for- 
ward, but  we  must  not  be  too  much  disap- 
pointed if  we  are  forced  to  return  to  a  "day 
of  little  things"  —  which  we  are  told  is  not  to 
be  despised. 

Organizations,  no  doubt,  have  their  value, 
but  when  overdone  their  effect  is  more  than 
questionable.  At  the  present  time  individual 
initiative,  which  is  probably  the  greatest  force 
for  good  in  our  civilization,  is  being  benumbed 
and  stifled  by  the  mad  passion  for  organiza- 
tion. In  the  matter  of  food  production  we  con- 
stantly get  news  about  this  and  that  great 
organization  that  is  arranging  to  investigate 
and  take  action,  and  the  ordinary  man  gets  an 
entirely  wrong  idea  into  his  head.  He  thinks 
that  with  all  the  Government  committees  and 
commissions  and  public -spirited  organizations 
at  work,  it  is  entirely  needless  for  him  to 
undertake  the  little  he  might  be  able  to  do  by 


136       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

his  own  efforts.  This  is  a  serious  misconcep- 
tion ;  many  great  movements  are  started  that 
are  "full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  noth- 
ing." While  organized  effort,  properly  di- 
rected, will  undoubtedly  accomplish  great 
things,  individual  initiative  has  been  the 
foundation  of  practically  every  success  our 
country  has  known.  This  tendency  to  flock 
together  into  organizations  whenever  there  is 
anything  to  be  done  is  not  an  entirely  health- 
ful sign.  Some  recent  experiences  have  led  me 
to  mourn  the  disappearance  of  an  effective 
though  somewhat  undesirable  type  of  citizen 
known  in  the  past.  In  trying  to  define  the  kind 
of  man  I  am  thinking  of,  I  remember  a  report 
of  a  scene  in  the  police  court  in  New  York 
some  years  ago.  A  lawyer  was  examining  the 
badly  battered  plaintiff. 

"What  did  the  defendant  say  to  you  on 
that  occasion?" 

"He  said  he  would  knock  my  head  off." , 

"And  what  else?" 

"He  said  he  would  mop  the  floor  with  me." 


OLD  HOME  WEEK  137 

"And  what  else?" 

"Er —  also  he  done  it." 

There  would  be  a  great  deal  of  progress  in 
this  world  if  it  could  be  said  after  the  plans 
suggested  by  each  man —  "also  he  done  it." 
The  trouble  just  now  is  that  we  all  organize 
and  nobody  gets  his  head  knocked  off  and  the 
floor  does  n't  get  mopped  up. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  WARD  LEADER 

In  Philadelphia,  while  being  entertained  by  a 
friend,  I  met  a  ward  leader  of  the  new  world 
that  is  to  be.  When  I  heard  the  familiar  title 
"ward  leader,''  memory  cut  back  on  the  film 
a  picture  of  my  old  friend  "Biff"  McGuire, 
ward  leader  for  Tammany  Hall.  "Biff"  held 
sway  in  a  tough  district,  and  in  the  words  of 
Spencer  he  was  "  in  a  state  of  correspondence 
with  his  environment."  Leaning  against  the 
end  of  the  bar  with  his  back  against  the  wall 
to  fend  off  a  possible  felon  stroke,  his  pose  was 
one  of  studied  carelessness.  One  foot  rested 
lightly  on  the  footrail  and  at  his  elbow  there 
was  a  bottle  of  his  "Private  Stock."  In  spite 
of  his  care-free  attitude,  his  uneasy  eye,  even 
when  he  was  absorbed  in  conversation,  no- 
ticed every  one  who  passed  through  the 
swinging  doors.  He  did  not  nod  acquaintance- 


THE  WARD  LEADER  139 

ship  to  all,  but  those  whom  he  favored  were 
more  stimulated  than  they  were  by  the  minis- 
trations of  the  white-coated  bartender.  From 
his  corner  he  dispensed  the  high,  low,  and 
middle  justice,  bought  drinks  for  his  depend- 
ents and  accepted  drinks  from  men  "higher 
up"  who  dropped  in  to  consult  with  him. 
Altogether  he  was  a  heroic  if  sinister  figure, 
much  railed  at  by  the  better  element.  A  phi- 
lanthropist in  his  evil  way  he  was  the  sole  pro- 
tector of  those  who  were  "fobbed  with  the 
rusty  curb  of  old  Father  antic,  the  law,"  and 
of  those  whose  misfortunes  had  submerged 
them  beyond  the  care  of  decent  society.  He 
shielded  them  under  his  grimy  aegis — in  return 
for  votes  and  other  obscure  political  service. 
In  his  rough  way  he  dispensed  the  only  charity 
that  these  unfortunates  knew,  and  at  all  times 
bore  himself  as  one  conscious  of  his  power 
in  shaping  the  destinies  and  controlling  the 
affairs  of  one  of  the  greatest  cities  of  mod- 
ern civilization.  With  the  picture  of  "Biff" 
McGuire  in  the  back  of  my  head,  I  met  the 


1 4o       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

new  "ward  leader,"  a  gentle  and  cultured 
woman,  luminous  with  the  fire  of  public  spirit. 
She  held  office  in  the  Philadelphia  League  of 
Women  Citizens,  which  has  been  organized 
according  to  the  best  traditions  of  the  old 
political  machines.  To  give  some  idea  of  the 
scope  and  purpose  of  this  Woman's  Move- 
ment, I  shall  quote  briefly  from  a  folder  which 
she  offered  for  my  enlightenment. 

The  National  League  of  Women  Voters  is 
a  national  organization  of  women  who  wish  not 
merely  to  vote,  but  to  use  their  votes  to  the  best 
advantage. 

The  Organization  has  two  purposes  — 
To  foster  education  in  citizenship  and  to  support 
improved  legislation. 

The  National  League  is  composed  of  State 
Leagues. 

The  Programme  is  educational  and  legislative, 
i.e.,  to  get  behind  needed  reforms,  to  urge  their 
support  and  adoption  in  the  platforms  of  the 
political  parties,  and  their  enactment  into  laws. 

The  Slogan  of  the  League  is  "Enroll  in  the 
Political  Parties.''  It  is  organized  to  do  legisla- 
tive work  in  order  to  promote  its  programme. 


THE  WARD  LEADER  141 

It   is    NOT   A    WOMAN'S    PARTY   OR   A   SEPARATE 

political  party.  The  League  of  Women  Voters 
hopes  to  accomplish  its  purpose  in  two  ways: 
first,  by  education,  as  to  national  and  state 
human  needs;  second,  by  the  direct  influence  of 
its  own  members  who  are  enrolled  voters  in  the 
already  existing  political  parties.  It  is  not  parti- 
san. It  will  not  support  or  attack  national  can- 
didates or  national  parties.  To  quote  from  the 
Constitution,  "The  National  League  of  WTomen 
Voters  urges  every  woman  to  become  an  enrolled 
voter,  but  as  an  organization  it  shall  be  allied 
with  and  support  no  party." 

These  be  "prave  words,"  but  while  I  listened 
to  her  eager  exposition  of  all  the  good  that  the 
League  hopes  to  acccmplish,  memory  played 
me  another  scurvy  trick.  I  remembered  the 
one  hour  of  mirth  I  enjoyed  in  Ottawa  during 
the  Canadian  Federal  campaign  of  1917.  A 
wild-eyed  man  from  Montreal  had  rushed  up 
to  me  in  the  office  where  I  had  a  temporary 
desk.  Gesticulating  furiously  he  poured  out 
a  terrible  tale  of  what  was  happening  in 
Montreal.  In  the  slum  districts  all  the  police 


142       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

court  habitues  were  registered  as  "sisters  of 
soldiers."  In  that  election  only  such  women  as 
were  the  sisters,  wives,  mothers,  or  daughters 
of  soldiers  were  entitled  to  vote.  According 
to  my  passionate  informant  the  election  in  the 
riding  in  which  he  was  working  would  be  con- 
trolled by  the  corrupt  vote  of  these  unfortu- 
nates. Under  the  conditions  that  prevailed  in 
that  election  I  knew  it  would  be  impossible 
to  do  anything,  and  when  he  brought  down  his 
fist  on  a  desk  and  thundered,  almost  in  the 
words  of  some  forgotten  poet, 

"These  are  the  deeds  that  are  done  in 
Montreal!" 

I  was  moved  to  great  laughter.  I  could  not 
help  thinking  of  a  woman  friend  who  had 
been  telling  me  how  the  women  voters  would 
purify  politics.  She  had  even  introduced  me 
to  Mrs.  Pankhurst  so  that  I  might  get  the  gos- 
pel of  feminism  from  the  lips  of  its  prophetess. 
How  the  women  are  going  to  handle  this 
submerged  vote  is  a  problem  that  I  have  not 
seen  discussed.   Are  we  to  have  female  coun- 


THE  WARD  LEADER  143 

terparts  of  "Biff"  McGuire  to  herd  these 
voters  to  the  polls? 

It  seemed  strange,  and  perhaps  porten- 
tous, that  I  should  have  my  first  contact  with 
the  women  voters  of  the  United  States  in 
Philadelphia,  where  political  methods  "make 
the  judicious  grieve."  What  they  will  do  can 
only  be  known  after  their  votes  have  been 
cast.  And  if  race  hatred  and  narrow  national- 
ism are  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  com- 
ing campaign,  it  will  be  interesting  to  see  if 
they  can  be  swayed  by  the  emotional  appeals 
that  are  certain  to  be  made.  Women  are  said 
to  be  more  emotional  than  men,  and  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  experts  of  scientific  politics 
will  overlook  the  work  that  may  be  done  by 
the  "  sob-sisters."  I  have  in  mind  some  won- 
derful "sob-sister"  stuff  that  was  used  in  the 
last  Canadian  election.  I  have  always  sus- 
pected that  it  was  written  by  a  hardened  male 
campaign  writer — but  that  is  of  no  impor- 
tance. What  is  important  is  that  the  "  psychol- 
ogy "  of  woman  is  to  have  a  part  in  the  already 


i44       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

complex  problem  of  politics.  It  seems  unkind 
to  doubt  that  the  woman  will  play  a  noble 
and  beneficent  part  in  the  politics  of  the  fu- 
ture, but  I  have  some  glimmerings  of  the 
methods  that  politicians  may  use  to  defeat 
them,  and,  to  lapse  into  parody: 

"I  walked  the  city  streets  to-day 
With  the  sombre  ghost  of  Matthew  Quay." 

The  best  hope  is  that  the  swift  intuition  of 
women  will  enable  them  to  see  more  quickly 
than  men  that  the  salvation  of  the  democracies 
does  not  lie  in  political  activity,  but  in  the 
way  in  which  every  citizen  attends  to  the  lit- 
tle commonplace  things  of  everyday  life. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  NEW  MASTER  WORD 

A  point  has  been  reached  where  I  feel  that 
I  must  write  a  chapter  on  psychology  in  rela- 
tion to  present-day  affairs.  Not  that  I  know 
anything  about  it!  Heaven  forbid!  But  ever 
since  leaving  home  I  have  been  hearing  about 
the  psychology  of  this  and  that  until  the  con- 
viction has  grown  that  an  account  of  this  dip 
into  the  world  will  not  be  complete  without  a 
chapter  on  the  latest  and  most  popular  of  our 
sciences.  And  it  is  not  personal  psychology 
that  must  be  dealt  with.  It  is  mob-psychology 
— the  most  elusive  of  all  subjects — that  must 
be  passed  under  review. 

But  there  is  no  escape.  The  thing  has  been 
meeting  me  everywhere.  In  Toronto  a  hotel 
proprietor  spoke  lightly  of  the  need  of  under- 
standing the  psychology  of  female  help  if  one 
is  to  have  good  dining-room  service.  That 
centered  my  attention. 


146       THE  AFFAELE  STRANGER 

In  Boston  I  had  luncheon  with  a  man  who 
has  made  psychology  his  life-study  and  is 
widely  known  as  an  authority  on  the  subject. 
We  talked  psychology,  personal  and  general, 
for  two  blessed  hours,  and  I  was  so  much  inter- 
ested that  I  almost  missed  an  appointment. 
I  kept  the  appointment,  however,  and  found 
that  I  had  arrived  "at  the  psychological" 
moment. 

In  New  York  a  movie  magnate  talked  about 
the  psychology  of  people  who  patronize  grand 
opera. 

At  an  art  auction-room  I  heard  about  the 
peculiar  psychology  of  collectors  of  art  ob- 
jects, rare  books,  and  et  cetera,  and  of  the 
need  of  understanding  it  if  one  is  to  deal  with 
them  successfully. 

Presently  I  met  a  dealer  in  high-class  sta- 
tionery who  was  almost  in  despair  through 
need  of  a  phrase  that  may  be  used  instead  of 
"de  luxe" — which  is  now  outworn  through 
too  much  use,  though  it  was  once  "an  excel- 
lent good  word  before  it  was  ill-sorted."   His 


THE  NEW  MASTER  WORD        147 

urgent  need  was  for  a  word  or  phrase  that 
would  "  appeal  to  the  physchology  of  women." 
As  words  are  the  commodity  in  which  I  deal 
he  appealed  to  me  for  help.  Apparently  he 
had  sized  up  my  psychology  properly,  for  I 
appreciated  the  compliment  and  racked  my 
memory  for  something  suitable.  Finally  I  re- 
membered a  descriptive  phrase  that  I  had  no- 
ticed in  a  catalogue  while  looking  at  the  hang- 
ings and  furniture  of  the  Kaiser's  throne-room, 
that  were  offered  for  sale  while  I  was  in  New 
York.  It  was  a  melodious  phrase  that  appealed 
richly  to  three  out  of  the  five  senses.  When  he 
heard  it  he  thanked  me  profusely  and  hurried 
away  to  have  it  patented  as  a  trade  name. 

While  a  collector  of  Japanese  prints  was 
showing  me  his  treasures  we  discussed  Oriental 
psychology. 

There  is  no  doubt  of  it.  If  I  am  to  make 
these  hasty  pages,  even  in  a  small  way,  a  "mir- 
ror of  the  Passing  World,"  I  must  grapple 
with  psychology. 

Psychology  met  me  at  every  turn.    Bell- 


148       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

boys  and  Pullman  porters  who  understood  the 
psychology  of  the  travelling  public  knew  that 
a  few  ineffective  passes  with  a  whiskbroom 
would  make  us  part  with  our  small  change. 
Restaurant  waiters  who  were  masters  of  psy- 
chology knew  that  showing  an  interest  in  the 
food  they  served  and  asking  if  it  was  entirely 
suited  to  our  taste  made  tips  imperative  —  no 
matter  what  our  convictions  and  good  reso- 
lutions on  the  subject  might  be. 

There  is  no  doubt  of  it.  "Psychology"  is 
now  the  master  word  of  the  world,  and  as 
mankind  has  at  all  times  groaned  under  the 
tyranny  of  words  and  phrases  the  matter  must 
be  looked  into.  We  have  the  historic  example 
of  "divine  right"  which  tyrannized  over  the 
world  for  many  centuries.  But  let  us  deal 
with  those  words  that  have  influenced  our 
own  lives.  First  we  were  made  to  step  lively 
(itself  a  modern  phrase  of  much  potency)  by 
"  the  strenuous  life."  Then  by  a  natural  reac- 
tion we  tried  to  recuperate  with  "the  simple 
life"  and  "the  rest  cure."  After  that  we  had 


THE  NEW  MASTER  WORD        149 

a  period  when  "  efficiency "  Jiurried  the  joy- 
out  of  life.  Then  came  "propagandas"  that 
were  designed  to  enslave  the  world  to  all  kinds 
of  far-reaching  schemes.  Now  we  are  up  to 
the  neck  in  "psychology." 

The  above  instances  are  recorded  merely  to 
show  the  need  of  dealing  with  the  question  if 
I  am  to  be  right  up  to  the  minute.  And  I 
know  practically  nothing  about  it.  Why,  oh, 
why,  did  n't  I  read  Le  Bon  more  carefully, 
instead  of  treating  his  huge  volumes  as  a  new 
and  amusing  kind  of  fiction  ?  Still  I  can  re- 
member a  little. 

The  laws  governing  mob-psychology  have 
been  crystallized  in  the  formula,  "affirma- 
tion, repetition,  authority,  contagion."  Affirm 
a  thing  strongly  enough,  repeat  it  often 
enough,  have  it  thundered  forth  with  author- 
ity, and  finally  a  contagion  of  conviction  will 
sweep  the  multitude.  It  might  be  shown  that 
every  leader  and  master  of  men  from  Moses  to 
Lloyd  George  was  a  master  of  mob-psychology 
—  for  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  history  always 


150       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

lends  itself  to  interpretation  by  the  theory 
that  is  popular  at  any  given  time.  And  contem- 
porary life  also  invariably  lends  itself  to  the 
same  treatment.  Let  us  take  a  humble  instance. 

The  successful  promotion  of  a  patent  medi- 
cine follows  exactly  the  best  methods  of  mob- 
psychology. 

The  merits  of  the  nostrum  are  affirmed 
strongly  in  advertisements  of  all  kinds  from 
the  daily  press  to  the  bill-boards  and  scenic 
monstrosities.  These  affirmations  are  re- 
peated everywhere  and  at  all  times.  Then  we 
have  authoritative  testimonials  showing  the 
before  and  after  conditions  of  men  and  women 
eminent  in  all  walks  of  life.  Presently  a  swift 
contagion  sweeps  the  crowd  and  we  all  begin 
taking  "Pale  Pills  for  Peculiar  People"  or 
"Dope  Drops  for  Disgruntled  Digestions." 
And  the  shrewd  promoter  of  the  nostrum  ac- 
quires a  great  fortune,  goes  into  society,  and, 
if  he  lives  in  a  country  where  titles  prevail, 
buys  a  title  by  one  of  the  many  devious  meth- 
ods of  securing  such  honors. 


THE  NEW  MASTER  WORD        151 

Certainly  it  is  clear  that  humanity  is  at 
present  prostrate  before  those  who  are  mas- 
ters of  mob-psychology,  either  through  learn- 
ing or  by  instinct. 

And  yet  it  is  only  a  few  years  since  the 
majority  of  us  knew  no  more  about  psychology 
than  the  Long  Island  fisherman  who  was  beat- 
ing his  way  against  the  wind  to  a  favorite  place 
for  bluefish.  A  hasty  motor  launch  passed  him 
and  he  spelled  out  the  name  on  the  bow. 

"P-s-y-c-h-e,"  he  spelled.  Then  he  spat 
into  the  brine  and  exclaimed  disgustedly: 

"Well,  if  that  is  n't  the  doggondest  way  to 
spell  fish  I  ever  seen!" 

If  that  fisherman  is  still  alive  he  probably 
claims  to  understand  the  psychology  of  blue- 
fish  and  chooses  with  scientific  exactness  the 
right  kind  of  bait  to  use  in  dumming  for  them. 

"Surely  this  is  not  the  sun-bright 

Psyche,  hoar  with  years  and  hurled 
From  the  Northern  shore  of  Lethe 
On  this  wan  auroral  world." 

All  of  which  goes  to  prove  that  the  world  is 


152       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

now  passing  through  a  psychological  phase  — 
though  it  is  infinitely  more  in  need  of  potatoes 
than  of  psychology.  "We  that  have  good  wits 
have  much  to  answer  for"  if  we  do  not  correct 
this  folly.  But  of  course  we  must  go  about  it 
in  a  proper  psychological  way.  We  must -affirm 
the  world-healing  quality  of  potatoes,  repeat 
it  on  all  occasions  in  season  and  out,  have  our 
campaign  endorsed  by  men  of  power  and  au- 
thority —  and  then  perhaps  everybody  will 
be  infected  by  a  longing  for  potatoes  and  will 
see  the  need  of  planting  and  hoeing  the  pota- 
toes themselves.  If  they  will  have  psychology 
let  them  have  a  surfeit  of  it  —  and  then  per- 
haps they  will  get  back  to  the  simple,  every- 
day things  of  life  that  alone  are  of  impor- 
tance. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LOYALTY 

Another  Master  Word  that  needs  to  be  in- 
vestigated is  Loyalty.  To  say  that  a  man  is 
disloyal  is  to  make  him  an  outlaw.  But  what 
is  Loyalty  ?  It  is  certainly  time  that  we  knew. 
During  the  Great  War  there  was  a  confusion 
of  loyalties  that  has  not  yet  been  cleared 
away.  Most  of  us  have  been  overworked  on 
the  score  of  loyalty. 

Personally  I  have  been  harangued  to  show 
unquestioning  loyalty  to  : 

Canada. 

The  Empire. 

The  Allies. 

The  Protestant  Religion. 

A  political  party. 

A  corporation. 

My  personal  friends. 

No  doubt  there  were  other  loyalties  that 


154       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

were  urged  on  my  attention,  but  the  list  given 
is  sufficient.  And  all  these  loyalties  conflicted 
at  one  time  or  another  during  the  turmoil  of 
the  war.  Though  I  tried,  with  all  the  earnest- 
ness of  a  soul  face  to  face  with  the  world's 
greatest  crisis,  to  do  the  loyal  things  at  all 
times,  I  have  been  accused  bitterly  at  different 
times  of  having  been  disloyal  to  one  or  another 
of  the  great  causes  that  demanded  my  sup- 
port. But  as  this  happened  only  while  I  was 
being  loyal  to  one  or  another  of  them,  my 
conscience  is  not  troubling  me.  I  am  merely 
confused.  No  one  could  possibly  be  loyal  to 
all  of  them  at  all  times.  Out  in  Vancouver  I 
read  in  the  papers  that  they  were  teaching  the 
school-children  to  sing  a  patriotic  song  of 
which  I  remember  these  two  lines : 
"We  love  the  land  where  we  were  born 
But  we  love  the  Empire  more." 

As  the  Empire  is  still  a  somewhat  unde- 
fined aggregation  of  conflicting  interests  I  can- 
not help  wondering  how  those  children  may 
act  in  some  crisis  of  the  future.  Suppose  the 


LOYALTY  155 

Imperial  interests  at  some  time  became  cen- 
tred in  Africa  or  India,  would  a  Canadian  be 
supposed  to  be  more  loyal  to  Africa  or  India 
than  to  Canada? 

In  the  days  when  kings  were  absolute  the 
matter  of  loyalty  was  quite  simple.  Unless 
one  showed  unquestioning  fidelity  to  the  king 
he  might  expect  to  hear  the  curt  sentence: 

"Off  with  his  head!" 

But  now  the  people  are  supreme  in  all  coun- 
tries of  importance,  even  though  the  institu- 
tion of  monarchy  may  be  continued  and 
properly  venerated.  In  England,  for  instance, 
where  monarchy  is  more  firmly  established 
than  in  most  countries,  loyalty  is  defined  to 
the  satisfaction  of  all  good  subjects  in  this 
popular  quotation  from  Junius : 

"The  subject  who  is  truly  loyal  to  the  chief 
Magistrate  will  neither  advise  nor  submit  to 
arbitrary  measures." 

This  attitude  is  reflected  in  the  phrase  "His 
Majesty's  Loyal  Opposition."  It  is  conceded 
that  a  member  of  Parliament  who  honestly 


156       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

opposes  Government  measures  is  just  as  loyal 
to  his  king  and  country  as  one  who  supports 
the  Government  measures.  The  important 
attitude  of  his  loyalty  is  honesty.  If  that  is 
conceded,  his  loyalty  is  rated  as  high  as  that 
of  any  man. 

During  the  war  this  kind  of  loyalty  was 
largely  in  abeyance.  To  oppose  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day  even  in  its  most  appalling 
mistakes  was  regarded  as  disloyal.  And  ap- 
parently there  are  many  representatives  of 
the  people  who  found  that  this  simplified  the 
business  of  government  and  would  like  to 
continue  it.  But  governments  in  all  countries 
achieved  so  much  unpopularity  during  the 
war  that  this  reactionary  point  of  view  is  not 
likely  to  prevail. 

At  the  present  time  one  hears  it  said  fre- 
quently that  steps  must  be  taken  to  educate 
people  in  true  loyalty.  This  being  the  case  it 
becomes  necessary  to  know  just  what  loyalty 
is.  In  a  letter  to  a  group  of  Boy  Scouts  Sir 
Robert   Baden-Powell  gave   an   explanation 


LOYALTY  157 

that  is  helpful.  Taking  the  case  of  a  football 
player  who  had  kicked  a  goal  as  an  example, 
Sir  Robert  wrote : 

He  gets  the  applause,  just  because  he  had  the 
luck  to  be  in  his  place  to  put  the  ball  through, 
when  the  whole  team  had  had  the  work  of  get- 
ting it  to  him  by  hard  and  unselfish  work  in 
passing  it  on.  They  all  deserved  the  applause. 

Well,  that  is  how  we  get  on  and  are  successful 
anywhere,  not  by  one  fellow  trying  to  win  glory 
and  prizes  for  himself,  but  by  everybody  buck- 
ing up  and  playing  his  best  so  that  his  side  shall 
win.  Do  this  for  your  patrol,  do  it  for  your 
troop,  do  it  for  your  factory  or  business,  do  it 
for  your  country.  If  you  stick  to  that  you  will 
be  a  true  Scout  —  one  who  plays  for  his  side 
and  not  for  himself. 

An  analysis  of  this  message  from  the  man 
who  has  perhaps  done  more  than  any  other  to 
educate  the  future  generation  to  loyalty  shows 
that  in  his  opinion  loyalty  is  a  high  order  of 
unselfishness. 

This  is  excellent,  but  it  makes  it  more  than 
ever  needful  for  us  to  be  careful  that  this  ad- 
mirable unselfishness  is  not  betrayed.  Though 


158       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

loyalty  sometimes  appears  to  be  the  only 
necessary  virtue,  it  may  be  abused  to  the 
point  where  it  becomes  a  vice.  Loyalty  with- 
out intelligence  may  degrade  a  man  to  the 
level  of  a  beast. 

Take  the  dog,  for  instance.  Loyalty  is  his 
most  outstanding  virtue.  He  may  be  useless 
in  every  other  way,  but  he  will  be  loyal  to  his 
master.  Unfortunately  he  is  just  as  likely  to 
be  loyal  to  Bill  Sykes  as  to  the  finest  man  in 
the  community.  And  if  Bill  Sykes  wants  to  do 
it  he  can  "sick"  his  dog  on  the  finest  man  in 
the  community  or  on  any  one  in  the  commun- 
ity and  the  loyal  dog  will  obey. 

Dog  loyalty  of  this  kind  is  just  what  leaders 
and  rulers  of  a  certain  type  are  always  clamor- 
ing for.  If  they  can  get  a  sufficient  following 
of  dog-loyal  people,  they  can  grasp  power  and 
loot  the  treasury  or  do  anything  else  they  wish. 
By  "sicking"  dog-loyal  people  against  other 
nations  crafty  leaders  can  win  elections,  raise 
tariffs,  and  provoke  wars. 

In  a  democracy  dog  loyalty  is  perhaps  the 


LOYALTY  159 

greatest  enemy  of  progress  and  good  govern- 
ment. Consequently  it  is  very  necessary  for 
us  to  examine  all  loyalty  cries  and  loyalty 
propaganda  with  great  care.  We  should  see 
to  it  that  the  loyalty  demanded  is  of  a  kind 
that  a  self-respecting  man  may  cherish  and 
not  a  dog  loyalty  that  will  make  him  a  tool  of 
noisy  and  selfish  leaders.  Loyalty  is  the  most 
generous  of  human  emotions  —  the  basic  vir- 
tue of  the  Christian,  the  lover,  the  friend,  the 
patriot.  But  just  because  the  loyal-hearted 
man  is  so  generous  and  unselfish  he  is  con- 
stantly being  preyed  upon  by  the  designing 
and  the  selfish.  It  was  by  educating  the  loy- 
alty of  a  submissive  people  to  one  selfish  end 
that  the  rulers  of  Germany  built  an  empire 
that  became  a  menace  to  the  world.  Loyalty 
is  a  force  that  builds  nations,  but  it  can  also 
hurry  them  to  destruction.  If  the  world  is  to 
become  truly  democratic  we  must  learn  that 
loyalty  to  the  State  means  loyalty  to  our- 
selves. If  we  are  to  realize  Lincoln's  democ- 
racy—  "government  of  the  people,  for  the 


i6o       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

people,   by  the   people"  —  we  must   at   all 
times  guard  it  with  Shakespeare's  loyalty: 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true 
And  it  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  SHIVERING  TEXAN 

One  morning  I  rode  down  Broadway  on  a 
cable  car  and  whiled  away  the  time  by  read- 
ing the  names  on  the  business  signs  and  win- 
dows. This  led  me  to  meditate  on  the  evident 
failure  of  the  Zionist  movement  as  far  as 
New  York  is  concerned  —  but  that  is  neither 
here  nor  there. 

My  meditations  were  presently  interrupted 
by  the  man  who  sat  next  to  me.  He  was  visibly 
and  audibly  shivering.  It  was  a  cool  morning 
in  May,  but  I  felt  comfortable.  At  last  he 
blurted: 

"Say,  I  didn't  expect  to  run  into  any 
weather  like  this.  When  I  left  Texas  five  days 
ago  it  was  105  in  the  shade." 

He  was  evidently  dressed  for  that  temper- 
ature. While  sympathizing  with  him,  I  ad- 
mitted that  I  was  from  Canada  and  accus- 


1 62       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

tomed  to  cooler  weather,  besides  being  pro- 
vided with  heavier  clothing.  The  reference  to 
Canada  started  him  going,  and  all  I  had  to  do 
was  to  sit  back  and  listen.  His  people  had 
gone  from  Canada  to  Texas.  He  had  many 
relatives  in  the  neighborhood  of  Montreal. 
He  was  of  Irish  descent.  He  had  no  sooner 
mentioned  this  fact  than  he  began  to  express 
his  hatred  for  England.  Take  her  treatment 
of  Canada  in  the  war,  for  instance.  She  had 
used  the  Canadian  army  for  the  worst  fighting 
and  had  saved  her  own  troops.  I  hastened  to 
assure  him  that  his  view  was  not  in  accordance 
with  the  facts  and  did  not  represent  Canadian 
opinion.  He  listened  incredulously,  and  fear- 
ing that  I  might  stop  his  flow  of  opinion  I  did 
not  make  serious  attempts  to  set  him  right. 
It  was  my  business  to  find  out  what  men  of 
his  type  were  saying  and  thinking,  so  I  en- 
couraged him  to  go  on.  And  he  went  on.  As 
I  listened,  my  wonder  grew  at  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  modern  propagandas  are  car- 
ried on.  This  man  from  Texas  —  from  thou- 


THE  SHIVERING  TEXAN        163 

sands  of  miles  away  —  had  exactly  the  same 
kind  of  misinformation  that  I  had  heard  whis- 
pered in  Canada  while  the  war  was  in  progress. 
England — he  always  said  England  instead  of 
Britain  —  had  made  no  sacrifices  compared 
with  those  demanded  of  her  colonies.  He  ex- 
pressed the  deepest  admiration  for  Canada  — 
for  the  heroism  of  her  soldiers  and  her  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice ;  and  having  done  that  he  felt 
quite  free  to  abuse  the  British  Empire  and 
especially  England. 

As  this  shows  a  lack  of  understanding  of 
Canada's  relations  to  the  Empire  that  I  had 
already  noticed  in  other  Americans,  I  shall 
deal  with  it  briefly.  It  is  as  if  a  man  who  was 
on  friendly  terms  with  one  member  of  a  family 
felt  himself  at  liberty  to  hate  all  the  other 
members  and  especially  the  parents.  There 
seems  to  be  a  need  of  a  propaganda  to  let  our 
American  friends  know  that  while  Canadians 
are  justly  proud  of  their  own  country,  they 
are  also  proud  of  the  Empire  to  which  they 
belong  and  have  a  filial  feeling  for  the  coun- 


164       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

tries  from  which  they  have  been  derived. 
Through  a  natural  evolution  Canada  has  al- 
ready achieved  that  form  of  loyalty  without 
which  A  League  of  Nations  will  be  useless. 
Canadians  are  loyal  to  their  own  land  and  to 
the  group  of  developing  nations  comprised  in 
the  Empire.  I  know  there  are  Canadians  who 
call  this  a  divided  loyalty  and  regard  it  as  im- 
practicable. If  this  view  is  sound,  then  there 
is  no  future  for  the  League  of  Nations,  for  a 
League  that  cannot  command  loyalty  cannot 
endure.  Unless  we  can  develop  loyalties  be- 
yond the  borders  of  our  own  country,  all 
efforts  to  abate  the  horrors  of  war  are  bound 
to  be  futile.  In  developing  a  loyalty  that  ex- 
tends beyond  the  borders  of  their  own  country 
to  the  bounds  of  Empire,  the  Canadians  are 
giving  a  leadership  that  the  world  needs.  They 
have  set  their  feet  on  the  only  path  that  leads 
to  better  things  for  humanity.  And  they  have 
done  this  by  a  natural  evolution  rather  than 
in  obedience  to  the  recently  enunciated  prin- 
ciples of  A  League  of  Nations.  It  is  true  that 


THE  SHIVERING  TEXAN         165 

important  changes  in  her  relationship  to  the 
Empire  will  be  needed  before  Canada  can 
claim  complete  nationhood,  but  when  they 
have  been  effected  by  gradual  evolution,  her 
loyalty  to  the  Empire  will  be  strengthened 
rather  than  weakened. 

Just  how  Canada  can  aspire  to  nationhood, 
while  continuing  to  be  a  part  of  the  British 
Empire  is  a  matter  that  causes  confusion  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  This  is  because  of  an  im- 
perfect understanding  of  the  evolution  of  the 
British  Empire.    Critics  of  this  relationship 
are  led  into  error  through  clinging  to  the  old 
meaning  of  the  word  "empire."  They  assume 
that  it  is  used  as  when  applied  to  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  great  empires  of  the  past.  In 
these  the  power  was  centralized  in  one  supreme 
government.  In  the  British  Empire  a  new  re- 
lationship has  been  evolving.    Power  is  being 
decentralized.  Each  of  the  Great  Dominions  is 
practically  self-governing  while  continuing  to 
be  a  part  of  the  British  Empire.  There  are  still 
some  matters  to  be  adjusted  regarding  the 


1 66       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

decentralization  of  authority,  but  the  whole 
tendency  is  toward  the  development  of  a 
league  of  British  nations,  each  self-governing, 
but  loosely  held  together  in  a  family  alliance. 
British  statesmen  have  discovered,  or  have 
had  it  forced  on  their  attention,  that  the  ties  of 
mutual  trust  are  stronger  than  the  centralized 
power  of  the  old  empires.  They  have  found 
that  the  handclasp  is  stronger  than  the  hand- 
cuff. The  bonds  of  faith  and  friendship  bind 
the  Empire  together  in  the  face  of  danger 
more  securely  than  any  bonds  ever  devised 
by  Imperial  power.  Canada's  position  in  the 
British  Empire  cannot  be  better  expressed 
than  in  the  words  of  the  late  Sir  Wilfrid 
Laurier,  spoken  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of 
the  Great  War: 

We  are  a  free  people,  absolutely  free.  The 
charter  under  which  we  live  has  put  it  in  our 
power  to  say  whether  we  should  take  part  in 
such  a  war  or  not.  It  is  for  the  Canadian  people, 
the  Canadian  Parliament,  and  the  Canadian 
Government  alone  to  decide.  This  freedom  is  at 
once  the  glory  and  honor  of  Britain,   which 


THE  SHIVERING  TEXAN         167 

granted  it,  and  of  Canada,  which  used  it  to 
assist  Britain.  Freedom  is  the  keynote  of  all 
British  institutions.  There  is  no  compulsion 
upon  those  dependencies  of  Great  Britain  which 
have  reached  the  stature  of  Dominions,  such  as 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa, 
and  such  Crown  Dependencies  as  India.  They 
are  all  free  to  take  part  or  not  as  they  think  best. 
That  is  the  British  freedom  which,  much  to  the 
surprise  of  the  world,  and  greatly  to  the  dismay 
of  the  German  Emperor,  German  professors, 
and  German  diplomats,  caused  the  rush  from 
all  parts  of  the  British  Empire  to  assist  the 
Mother  Country  in  this  stupendous  struggle. 
Freedom  breeds  loyalty.  Coercion  always  was 
the  mother  of  rebellion. 

At  the  present  time  the  British  Empire  is 
really  an  evolving  League  of  Nations  —  per- 
haps the  only  one  the  world  will  see  for  some 
time. 

If  a  league  of  free  British  nations,  with  the 
same  language,  laws,  and  traditions,  cannot 
work  together  in  harmony,  it  is  folly  to  hope 
that  the  diverse  nationalities  of  the  greater 
League  can  work  together  harmoniously.  In 
working  out  the  proper  relationship  among 


168       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

themselves  the  nations  of  the  British  Empire 
can  set  an  example  to  the  world  that  will  be 
of  more  value  than  anything  they  can  achieve 
by  force  of  arms  or  skill  in  diplomacy. 

Of  course  I  said  nothing  of  this  to  the  shiv- 
ering Texan.  He  was  really  more  interested  in 
heavy  underwear  than  in  national  problems 
and  was  talking  largely  to  keep  his  mind  off 
his  physical  discomfort.  And  talking  came 
easy,  for  there  was  little  thought  back  of  it. 
He  was  merely  repeating  what  he  had  heard 
or  had  read.  His  mind  had  taken  color  from 
every  propaganda  with  which  it  had  come  in 
contact.  To  what  he  had  heard  from  his 
parents  about  Ireland  and  England  he  had 
added  what  he  had  learned  in  the  public  his- 
tories of  the  United  States.  Back  of  "The 
Ancient  Grudge"  exposed  by  Mr.  Owen 
Wister  in  his  recent  volume  he  had  a  more 
ancient  grudge.  The  Sinn  Fein  propaganda 
had  found  in  him  an  eager  disciple. 

And  yet  he  was  a  loyal  American  —  so 
loyal  that  he  did  not  need  to  mention  the  fact. 


THE  SHIVERING  TEXAN         169 

He  revealed  this  loyalty  by  asking  if  there  was 
a  ferry  at  the  Battery  that  would  take  him  to 
the  Statue  of  Liberty. 

The  talk  with  the  Texan  gave  me  food  for 
thought  that  will  last  me  for  a  long  time.  How 
are  we  to  get  a  better  feeling  between  the  na- 
tions of  the  world  when  we  are  all  liable  to 
have  our  opinions  formed  by  histories  and 
propagandas.  Perhaps  the  most  hopeful  fea- 
ture of  the  Texan's  conversation  was  the  fre- 
quent use  of  the  remark,  "If  one  can  believe 
anything  he  reads  in  the  papers."  It  is  possible 
that  the  demands  made  on  our  credulity  will 
defeat  themselves.  We  may  reach  a  point 
where  we  will  treat  histories  and  political 
campaigns  as  sensible  people  have  learned  to 
treat  neighborhood  gossip  —  as  something  on 
which  one  should  not  base  opinions.  In  their 
neighborly  relations  civilized  communities 
have  got  beyond  the  duel  and  the  feud,  and 
have  learned  to  settle  differences  by  man-to- 
man discussion,  arbitration,  and  the  orderly 
processes  of  law.  It  is  asserted  that  the  world 


170       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

is  now  a  neighborhood  of  nations,  but  we  can- 
not have  a  neighborly  world  spirit  until  we 
make  a  bonfire  of  our  histories  and  close  our 
eyes  and  ears  to  propagandas.  We  are  having 
altogether  too  much  irresponsible  world  gos- 
sip, and  if  the  paper  shortage  develops  into  a 
real  famine  it  may  be  the  greatest  blessing 
that  could  happen.  y 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
MANY  INVENTIONS 

One  day  I  enjoyed  luncheon  with  an  old 
friend  and  we  essayed  a  theme  hard  as  high. 
I  doubt  if  what  we  talked  about  would  be  in- 
telligible to  all  readers,  and  I  am  none  too  sure 
that  we  understood  ourselves,  but  as  there 
seems  to  be  a  public  craving  for  such  intellec- 
tual flights  I  shall  venture  a  brief  digest  of  our 
talk. 

But  first  a  word  about  this  friend.  He  is 
a  finished  product  of  an  older  civilization  than 
that  of  New  York.  Whenever  I  walk  with  him 
in  what  Mr.  Henry  James  carefully  describes 
as  "the  Fifth  Avenue,"  I  feel  as  George  War- 
rington did  when  he  walked  with  Pendennis: 
"I  feel  as  if  I  had  a  flower  in  my  button-hole." 
His  life  moves  entirely  among  the  most  pre- 
cious objects  of  art  and  literature,  among 
masterpieces  of  sculpture,  painting,  printing, 


172       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

book-binding,  and  what  not.  And  withal  he 
is  very  much  alive  and  in  touch  with  the  world 
in  which  we  live.  After  this  introduction  I 
shall  let  him  rail  at  our  wonderful  civilization. 

"Invention  is  the  curse  of  the  world.  With 
our  machinery  and  efficiency  we  are  speeded 
up  so  that  life  has  been  spoiled.  I  wonder  who 
made  the  first  invention." 

That  led  to  a  pretty  discussion.  After 
dealing  with  the  subject  back  and  forth,  we 
decided  that  the  most  guilty  man  the  world 
had  ever  known  was  the  man  who  invented 
the  first  wheel  —  who  discovered  that  some- 
thing round  could  be  made  to  revolve.  That 
discovery  was  the  starting-point  of  all  our 
modern  machinery  and  destructive  speed. 
Take  away  the  wheel  and  the  world  would 
come  to  a  standstill.  I  joined  him  in  reviling 
that  far-off,  long-ago  inventor. 

Then  we  followed  the  first  wheel  —  was  it 
perhaps  a  potter's  wheel  ?  —  and  followed  its 
deadly  evolution.  The  oldest  wheels  recorded 
in  art  are  the  wheels  of  chariots — war  chari- 


MANY  INVENTIONS  173 

ots,  of  course.  There  you  see  the  earliest 
tendency  of  the  war  spirit  that  culminated  in 
our  great  war  of  machinery.  The  warrior 
used  the  wheel  to  make  a  chariot  to  give  him 
an  advantage  over  his  enemies.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  wheel  has  been  involved  with  war 
from  the  chariot  wheel  to  the  whirling  pro- 
pellors  of  aeroplanes. 

This  line  of  thought  led  us  to  realize  that 
war  is  the  great  stimulator  of  invention.  Such 
inventions  as  the  aeroplane  were  perfected 
more  completely  in  the  four  years  of  war  than 
they  would  have  been  in  centuries  of  peace. 
We  found  that  it  would  be  easy  to  hold  a  brief 
for  war  as  the  force  that  has  been  perfecting 
our  civilizations  of  many  inventions.  (Solo- 
mon said,  "Man  was  born  upright,  but  he  has 
sought  out  many  inventions.") 

But  what  does  it  profit  us  if  the  highest  use 
we  make  of  our  inventions  is  to  increase  our 
efficiency  in  battle?  If  we  invent  long  enough 
and  cleverly  enough,  wTe  may  yet  start  a  war 
in  which  we  will  destroy  the  human  race. 


174       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

That  awful  possibility  is  the  present  preoc- 
cupation of  scientific  research. 

We  are  told  that  the  next  advance  of  science 
may  be  the  discovery  of  how  to  release  atomic 
energy.  Molecular  energy,  brought  under  con- 
trol through  the  unstable  equilibrium  of  cer- 
tain artificial  compounds,  has  given  us  the  gun, 
the  cannon,  the  bomb,  the  mine,  and  all  the 
other  infernal  masterpieces  of  high  explosives. 
.    What  would  atomic  energy  give  us? 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  told  us  that  the 
amount  of  atomic  energy  in  one  ounce  of  mat- 
ter would  be  sufficient  to  raise  the  fleet  that 
was  anchored  in  Scapa  Flow  to  the  top  of  the 
highest  mountain  in  Scotland.  Then  what 
would  happen  if  we  released  the  atomic  en- 
ergy in  tons  of  matter?  It  is  certain  that  if 
man  ever  masters  the  secret  he  will  go  in  for 
quantity  production  of  atomic  energy.  And 
what  then? 

To  realize  the  dire  possibilities  of  this 
thought  we  must  digress  and  approach  it 
from  a  new  angle. 


MANY  INVENTIONS  175 

Those  of  us  who  date  our  meagre  scientific 
knowledge  from  reading  done  in  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  past  century  had  our  imaginations 
fired  by  the  nebular  hypothesis.  I  do  not 
know  whether  it  has  current  authority,  but  it 
was  a  wonderful  theory  and  will  serve  our 
purposes  to-day.  I  quite  realize  that  if  I  am 
to  avoid  destructive  scientific  criticism,  I 
should  consult  some  up-to-the-minute  scientist 
and  get  my  facts  right,  but  a  care-free  conver- 
sation between  friends  is  not  to  be  "cabined, 
cribbed,  confined"  in  that  way.  If  I  let  the 
public  overhear  our  talk  I  shall  expect  them 
to  listen  with  unquestioning  courtesy.  I  have 
purposely  avoided  asking  the  aid  and  leading 
of  a  scientist  in  this  matter  because  most  of 
the  scientists  of  my  acquaintance  live  wholly 
within  three  dimensions  and  have  put  a  pad- 
lock on  the  third.  But  the  conversation  of 
friends  demands  the  freedom  of  a  fourth  di- 
mension in  which  our  Space  and  Time  are  but 
points  on  the  superfices  of  a  comprehended  In- 
finity and  Eternity.  Now  will  you  be  good ! 


176       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

To  return  to  the  nebular  hypothesis.  Ac- 
cording to  it  the  planets  were  flung  from  the 
whirling  mass  of  the  sun  as  it  was  in  the  proc- 
ess of  shrinking.  Neptune  was  naturally  the 
first  to  be  thrown  off  and  the  others  followed 
in  due  order.  Would  it  not  be  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  oldest  of  the  planets  —  the 
one  that  was  first  thrown  off  from  the  sun  and 
is,  farthest  from  it  —  would  be  the  first  to 
cool  and  become  habitable  ?  But  it  is  known 
that  all  the  outer  planets  except  Mars  are  in 
a  gaseous  state.  Is  there  any  possible  expla- 
nation of  this  curious  state  of  affairs  —  this 
apparent  contradiction  of  logical  results  which 
gives  us  the  last  planets  solid  and  the  earlier 
planets  gaseous  ? 

If  the  earlier  planets  cooled  to  solid  form 
and  developed  life  analogous  to  ours,  it  is 
probable  that  they  lived  by  war  and  inven- 
tion. If  these  forces  developed  as  with  us,  it 
is  probable  that  a  day  came  on  each  of  the  old 
planets  when  its  puny  inhabitants  got  control 
of  atomic  energy,  started  a  last  war,  and  blew 


MANY  INVENTIONS  177 

their  planet  back  to  its  constituent  gases. 
Atomic  energy  is  probably  a  force  of  the  fourth 
dimension  and  if  released  in  three  dimensions 
would  have  about  the  same  effect  as  that  of  a 
high-explosive  shell  passing  through  a  piece  of 
tissue  paper  and  exploding  as  it  passed. 

The  destructive  discovery  progressed  across 
the  ecliptic  until  only  four  planets  are  left 
in  solid  form.  Mars  may  now  be  preparing 
for  the  last  proud  war  and  we  are  on  the  verge 
of  a  culminating  discovery  of  the  disruptive 
force  of  atomic  energy.  Unless  something 
checks  our  rage  for  discovery,  and  war  is 
within  reasonable  possibility,  the  whole  plane- 
tary system  may  be  blown  back  to  chaos  — 
and  so  fulfil  Poe's  amazing  figure  of  the  alterna- 
tion from  Chaos  to  Order  and  from  Order 
to  Chaos  as  "the  systole  and  diastole  of  the 
heart  of  the  Infinite." 

After  this  exhausting  flight  my  friend  faced 
the  High  Cost  of  Living  in  the  form  of  the 
waiter's  check,  passed  me  a  cigar  that  cost 
a  dollar,  and  in  a  humble  taxi  we  joined  the 


178       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

whirling  civilization  that  speeds  on  wheels 
along  "the  Fifth  Avenue,"  and  doubtless 
whiles  away  its  idle  time  in  discussing  the  war 
and  who  won  it. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
AN  EXPERIMENT  IN  MODESTY 

One  afternoon  toward  the  end  of  my  trip 
I  made  a  mistake  —  for  which  I  am  now 
duly  thankful.  Through  weariness,  or  care- 
lessness or  over-confidence  or  a  human  desire 
to  talk  frankly  to  somebody,  I  dropped  my 
pose  of  the  Affable  Stranger  and  freely  ad- 
mitted to  an  American  whom  I  had  engaged 
in  conversation  that  I  was  gathering  material 
for  a  book.  I  also  went  as  far  as  to  indicate 
the  nature  of  my  investigations.  At  once  he 
assumed  an  attitude  of  helpfulness.  All  that 
he  knew  about  the  subject  of  international 
relations  was  at  my  disposal  —  and  he  knew  a 
surprising  lot  of  things  that  were  of  no  impor- 
tance. You  meet  men  of  'this  kind  wherever 
new  books  are  discussed  — or  any  kind  of  hu- 
man achievement.  Parasitic  helpers  attach 
themselves  to  every  kind  of  work  from  farm- 


180       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER' 

ing  to  statesmanship.  In  fact  this  character- 
istic must  be  universal,  for  Fabre  has  a  passage 
on  it  in  his  description  of  scarabs.  When  one 
of  them  finds  a  treasure  others  help  him  in 
just  that  way.  I  am  being  explicit  on  the  point, 
for  the  theme  of  this  chapter  is  modesty  as  it 
affects  the  relations  between  countries.  Being 
somewhat  modest  in  my  claims  to  modesty 
I  feel  competent  to  discuss  the  matter  with 
the  necessary  intellectual  aloofness. 

"The  trouble  with  Canadians,"  said  the 
candid  and  helpful  American,  "is  that  they 
are  too  cocky!" 

That  made  me  tingle  to  my  last  pin-feath- 
er, but  fortunately  I  am  of  Scotch  ancestry 
and  the  obvious  witty  retort  did  not  flash 
back  instantly.  In  fact  I  was  rather  dazed, 
but  somewhere  deep  down  in  my  conscious- 
ness I  felt  the  need  of  taking  the  criticism  in  a 
friendly  spirit,  for  if  a  man  starts  out  to  pro- 
mote harmonious  relations  he  must  not  be 
quick  to  take  offence.  Not  knowing  what 
else  to  do  I  smiled  affably,  which  was  quite 


AN  EXPERIMENT  IN  MODESTY    181 

in  keeping  with  the  role  I  was  playing.  Evi- 
dently my  smile  had  the  proper  blend  of  mod- 
esty and  humble  enquiry,  for  my  mentor  at 
once  fluffed  up  his  feathers  and  proceeded  : 

"As  a  matter  of  fact  we  get  along  much 
better  with  the  English  than  we  do  with 
you." 

That  gave  me  a  flash  of  insight.  Evidently 
this  man  had  never  fathomed  the  deep  guile  of 
much  English  modesty.  The  course  for  me  to 
pursue  was  clear.  At  once  I  became  a  shrink- 
ing violet.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  have  been 
times  when  I  have  wanted  to  knock  a  man 
downYor  being  half  as  modest  as  I  must  have 
looked  at  that  moment.  But  the  effect  on  the 
American  was  all  that  the  most  Machiavellian 
subtlety  could  desire.  It  would  hardly  have 
been  surprising  if  wings  had  sprouted  on  his 
shoulders  and  he  had  flapped  them  and 
crowed. 

"The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  Canada  is 
still  a  colony  of  Great  Britain  and  not  a  na- 
tion, and  no  amount  of  boasting  or  assertion 


1 82       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

to  the  contrary  will  change  the  actual  status." 

Wholesome  truth  this,  but  not  to  be  borne 
patiently  were  it  not  for  the  rising  tide  of 
laughter  within.  Every  moment  the  Ameri- 
can was  becoming  more  and  more  cocky  and 
exhibiting  the  very  quality  he  was  condemn- 
ing in  Canadians.  The  temptation  to  egg  him 
on  was  irresistible. 

"Still,"  I  ventured  modestly,  "it  would  be 
kind  in  Americans  to  overlook  this  youthful 
folly  of  ours.  At  the  present  time  there  is  a 
growing  bitterness  between  the  two  countries 
that  may  become  serious  unless  a  great  deal 
of  wise  tolerance  is  shown." 

"Oh,  it  can't  become  serious.  Perhaps  it 
might  a  hundred  years  from  now,  when  Can- 
ada may  have  a  population  approaching  ours, 
but  just  now  —  "  And  he  made  a  large  "shoo 
fly!"  gesture  that  dismissed  the  whole  matter 
as  unworthy  of  consideration. 

There  was  no  question  about  it.  I  must  go 
away  from  there  or  there  would  be  an  explo- 
sion that  would  reduce  my  gravity  to  a  total 


AN  EXPERIMENT  IN  MODESTY    183 

loss.  And  when  I  finally  got  away  from  the 
flood  of  kindly  candor  that  was  sweeping  over 
me  I  got  the  finest  thrill  of  all. 

I  had  mastered  the  art  of  that  exasperating 
English  modesty  that  had  always  been  my 
despair!  This  was  more  than  an  intellec- 
tual triumph!  It  was  balm  to  a  bruised  and 
wounded  spirit ! 

One  time  in  my  salad  days  two  London  club- 
men entertained  me  kindly  and  provoked  me 
to  entertain  them.  By  making  the  customary 
modest  deprecatory  remarks  about  Great 
Britain,  they  induced  me  to  unbosom  myself 
with  honest  candor.  After  two  months  at  the 
seat  of  the  Empire  I  felt  competent  to  tell 
them  many  things  that  were  amiss.  And  be- 
ing a  native-born  Canadian  I  was  able  to 
astonish  them  (my  word !)  with  my  accounts 
of  the  resources  and  possibilities  of  Canada. 
Almost  twenty  years  later  I  admit  freely  that 
most  of  my  criticisms  and  boasts  have  been 
proven  true,  but  that  is  not  the  point.  The 
point  is  that  those  two  Englishmen  got  me  to 


1 84       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

turn  myself  inside  out  for  their  amusement, 
but  it  was  not  until  I  had  suffered  several 
more  experiences  with  English  modesty  that 
the  truth  dawned  on  me  with  humiliating 
force.  Knowing  how  they  must  have  chuckled 
over  my  expansiveness  afterwards,  I  used  to 
writhe  every  time  I  thought  of  it.  Sometimes 
in  the  stillness  of  the  night  I  would  remember 
the  incident  and  be  tempted  to  jump  from 
bed,  dress,  hunt  up  those  Englishmen,  and 
beat  them  with  a  coarse  colonial  directness. 
But  now  the  hurt  is  healed.  Having  had  that 
American  at  my  mercy  —  as  the  chauffeur  of 
the  borrowed  car  would  say,  "I  owned  him  for 
a  few  minutes"  —  I  felt  a  new  sense  of  power 
in  expressing  national  egotism  and  meeting  it. 
Come  to  think  of  it,  Canada  must  have  a  na- 
tional status  or  I  could  not  have  achieved  it 
—  but  let  that  pass.  Ever  since  meeting  the 
charge  of  national  "cockiness"  with  modesty, 
I  have  been  in  the  mood  to  wave  my  hand  at 
those  two  Englishmen  through  the  mists  of 
memory  and  confess  a  bond  of  Imperial  broth- 


AN  EXPERIMENT  IN  MODESTY    185 

erhood.  I  have  proven  that  on  occasion  I  can 
be  as  modest  as  they  are. 

But  pshaw!  what  am  I  doing?  I  am  boasting 
about  my  modesty!  That  is  the  trouble  with 
even  the  most  excellent  virtues!  They  must 
be  practised  in  moderation.  True  modesty  is 
the  crowning  grace  of  high  achievement.  But 
conscious  modesty  is  an  offence  to  all  who  are 
forced  to  endure  it. 

However,  there  is  a  test  of  modesty  which 
may  be  worth  having  in  mind.  When  the 
rewards  of  achievement  are  within  reach,  if 
you  find  the  modest  person  shrinking  in  the 
limelight  and  taking  everything  he  can  lay  his 
hands  on,  you  may  appraise  his  modesty  at 
its  true  worth. 

All  who  feel  that  their  withers  have  been 
wrung  by  this  chapter  are  at  liberty  to  think 
this  out  in  its  varied  implications  and  apply  it 
as  they  choose. 


CHAPTER  XX 

MY  PRIVATE  MAHATMA 

Before  leaving  home  I  had  a  conference  with 
my  own  private  Mahatma. 

"What  is  the  greatest  need  of  the  world  to- 
day?" I  asked. 

"Sunshine." 

"You  mean— ?" 

"  Sunshine.  Just  the  ordinary,  everyday  sun- 
shine that  you  can  get  at  this  blessed  minute 
on  the  south  side  of  the  straw-stack.  Not 
moral  or  spiritual  or  intellectual  sunshine,  but 
the  kind  that  is  making  the  hens  cackle  — 
just  listen  to  them  —  the  kind  that  the  red 
cow  over  there  is  soaking  into  her  skin.  Just 
let  the  brand  of  sunshine  that  is  spilling  over 
the  world  to-day  work  its  way  into  your  sys- 
tem and  you  will  forget  all  your  troubles.  Get 
into  the  sunshine  and  keep  there." 

That  was  an  unusually  long  speech  for  my 


MY  PRIVATE  MAHATMA         187 

Mahatma  —  proof  that  he  was  very  much  in 
earnest.  To  the  ordinary,  unilluminated  eye 
he  was  simply  a  farmer —  "a  goodly,  portly 
man  i'  faith,  and  a  corpulent."  It  was  just  for 
these  qualities  that  I  chose  him  as  my  Ma- 
hatma. At  the  present  time  everybody  who 
can  afford  a  ouija-board  —  or  is  worth  fleecing 
by  a  medium  —  is  trying  to  get  in  touch  with 
the  next  world.  All  sorts  of  fakirs  with  un- 
healthy complexions  are  reaping  a  harvest 
from  the  credulous.  But  the  passion  of  my  life 
is  to  get  in  touch  with  this  world  —  with  the 
dreary,  wonderful,  tragic,  exhilarating,  proxy, 
poetical  world  that  we  have  been  born  into. 
And  I  find  it  just  as  hard  to  get  in  touch 
with  this  world  as  the  seekers  find  it  to  get  in 
touch  with  the  next.  That  is  why  I  chose  a 
good,  fat,  material  Mahatma  who  is  quite 
obviously  in  touch  with  such  gross  things  as 
food,  shelter,  clothing,  the  sunshine,  the  fresh 
air,  and  the  good  brown  earth.  While  others 
are  trying  to  establish  communications  with 
outlying  planets,  I  am  trying  to  get  into  com- 


1 88       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

munication  with  the  planet  on  which  I  live. 
Instead  of  trying  to  lease  a  private  wire  to  the 
Invisible,  I  want,  as  far  as  possible,  to  learn  a 
little  about  the  visible  and  tangible  and  aud- 
ible, and  smellable,  and  tasteable  world  in 
which  I  am  obliged  to  sojourn.  In  this  humble 
quest  my  Mahatma  is  a  great  help.  He  does 
not  say  cryptic  things  or  babble  trivialities  in 
the  name  of  the  mighty  Dead  —  the  mighty 
Damned  or  the  mighty  Blest.  He  tells  me  the 
right  way  to  plant  potatoes  and  prune  apple- 
trees,  and  our  communion  is  blest  with  eu- 
peptic content.  So  when  he  pointedly  directed 
my  attention  to  sunshine  as  the  greatest  need 
of  the  world,  I  felt  it  was  my  duty  to  listen. 

Though  the  business  of  life  drives  me  to  the 
city  from  time  to  time,  my  soul  has  been 
smitten  by  a  claustraphobia  that  makes  it  im- 
possible forme  to  become  a  slave  of  the  streets. 
Though  I  seem  to  leave  the  sunshine  behind 
when  I  leave  the  country,  I  can  always  find 
refreshment  in  the  parks.  Because  of  this, 
though  I  have  travelled  across  the  continent, 


MY  PRIVATE  MAHATMA         189 

visited  great  cities  and  met  many  men,  my 
happiest  and  most  vivid  memories  are  of  the 
parks.  In  Stanley  Park,  Vancouver,  I  sat 
under  the  giant  firs  and  cedars  and  wondered 
if  the  world  would  ever  again  know  the 
leisured  centuries  needed  to  bring  such  trees 
to  their  royal  perfection.  In  Lethbridge,  Re- 
gina,  Saskatoon,  and  other  cities  of  the  plains 
I  sat  under  transplanted  trees  that  are  strug- 
gling for  beauty  in  spite  of  inclement  winters. 
I  have  enjoyed  the  sunshine  and  shade  on 
Boston  Common  and  in  Madison  Square 
Garden,  and  all  have  left  me  memories  of  the 
tonic  and  healing  powers  of  sunshine. 

My  most  vivid  recollection  is  of  a  park  in 
Regina,  and  that  is  because  of  a  glimpse  I 
caught  of  far-away  sunshine.  A  letter  from 
France  had  caught  up  with  me  at  Regina  and 
I  read  it  in  the  park.  It  was  from  a  boy  in  the 
trenches,  and  among  other  gossip  of  the  bat- 
tle-line he  told  me  how  he  and  a  chum  were 
sunning  themselves  by  a  muddy  dugout  one 
morning  when  the  German  drive  was  at  its 


190       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

fiercest.  Things  were  looking  gloomy  for  the 
Allies  and  the  boy  had  been  going  over  the 
bad  news. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  his  chum  as  he  puffed  at  his 
pipe,  "in  spite  of  all  that  the  sun  is  shining 
and  the  leaves  are  coming  out." 

So  when  my  Mahatma  spoke  of  the  need  of 
sunshine  I  remembered  what  it  had  meant  to 
two  boys  facing  death  in  Flanders,  and  his  ad- 
vice seemed  good.  But  I  wanted  to  sound  him 
out  on  other  matters. 

"What  you  say  may  be  true,  but  the  great 
demand  of  the  present  time  is  for  laughter. 
Everybody  wants  to  be  amused." 

"Are  you  sure  of  that?" 

"Well,  editors  want  amusing  articles  and 
stories,  publishers  want  amusing  books,  the- 
atrical promoters  want  amusing  plays  and 
scenarios  —  lecture  bureaus  want  amusing 
lectures  —  and  so  it  goes  all  the  way  along 
the  line." 

"That  only  goes  to  prove  that  amusing  peo- 
ple has  become  a  business  without  any  more 


MY  PRIVATE  MAHATMA         191 

spontaneity  in  it  than  the  manufacture  of 
breakfast  foods.  And  the  people  who  want  to 
be  amused  are  the  people  who  have  easy- 
money  to'  spend.  Have  you  noticed  that 
mothers  who  have  lost  sons  want  to  be  amused, 
or  that  any  of  the  millions  who  have  been 
touched  by  the  cruelty  of  the  war  are  eager  to 
laugh?" 

"The  prevailing  opinion  seems  to  be  that 
we  should  forget  the  war." 

"Certainly.  Let  those  who  made  profits 
out  of  the  war  laugh  and  forget  that  they  were 
enriched  by  the  world's  agony  —  that  they 
piled  up  wealth  while  brave  young  men  were 
being  mangled,  smothered,  drowned,  shat- 
tered in  the  war.  If  they  remembered  such 
things  they  could  not  enjoy  their  profits.  By 
all  means  make  them  laugh  and  take  your 
wages  for  your  hireling  mirth.  Make  the  la- 
borers shut  their  eyes  and  open  their  mouths 
with  laughter  so  that  they  cannot  see  the  disas- 
ters towards  which  they  are  hurrying.  Make 
the  young  laugh  so  that  they  will  not  realize 


192       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

the  heritage  that  is  being  passed  to  them  by 
the  older  generation  whose  pride,  greed,  and 
folly  have  come  near  to  ruining  the  world." 

"The  press  dispatches  say  that  all  the  cap- 
itals are  mad  with  revelry.  It  is  even  said 
that  tourists  have  been  dancing  on  the  battle- 
fields." 

"Quite  so.  And  do  you  know  what  it  all 
looks  like  to  me?  It  reminds  me  of  the  wakes 
that  used  to  be  held  around  the  coffins  of  the 
newly  dead.  Humanity  is  now  holding  a  hide- 
ous wake  over  a  dead  civilization." 

"So  bad  as  that?" 

"Oh,  it  may  not  prove  to  be  so  very  bad  a 
thing.  The  sun  is  still  shining.  The  forces  that 
have  produced  all  the  good  there  ever  has  been 
in  the  world  are  still  at  work.  It  is  just  pos- 
sible that  in  the  new  world  at  least  the  unrest 
and  turmoil  that  have  been  troubling  us  are 
but  the  first  movements  of  a  change  for  which 
we  have  been  preparing  with  words  if  not  with 


actions." 


I  do  not  understand. 


MY  PRIVATE  MAHATMA         193 

"We  have  been  calling  the  new  world  a 
crucible  in  which  all  nationalists  have  been 
thrown  to  produce  the  true  American  or  the 
true  Canadian.  Have  you  ever  watched  a 
crucible  and  noticed  what  takes  place  in  it?" 

"I  once  saw  a  copper  crucible  in  British 
Columbia  and  a  silver  crucible  in  Massachu- 
setts and  iron  crucibles  here  and  there,  but  I 
never  studied  them  carefully." 

"Well,  the  only  crucible  I  ever  saw  was  the 
little  one,  made  by  the  blacksmith,  that  I  used 
for  running  bullets  when  a  boy.  I  used  to  get 
big  wads  of  tea  lead  from  the  grocer  and  melt 
it  in  the  little  crucible.  When  the  heat  got  to 
the  lead  it  would  sink  down  to  a  pool  at  the 
bottom.  The  top  would  be  covered  with  gray 
scum  and  blazing  scraps  of  paper.  Then  I 
would  pour  the  bright,  clean  metal  into  the 
bullet  moulds.  WTien  it  was  all  poured  there 
would  be  left  behind  the  gray  scum  from  the 
top  and  some  slag  at  the  bottom.  And  I  am 
thinking  that  when  the  good  metal  of  nation- 
ality is  ready  to  be  poured  we  will  leave  be- 


i94       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

hind  the  scum  of  parasites  at  the  top  and  the 
slag  of  agitators  at  the  bottom." 

"That  sounds  good,  but  when  will  it 
happen?" 

"It  may  happen  this  year  and  it  may  not 
happen  for  a  hundred  years  but  of  one  thing 
I  am  sure,  and  that  is  that  there  is  plenty  of 
good  metal  in  our  crucible." 

Whereupon  my  private  Mahatma  knocked 
the  ashes  from  his  pipe  and  walked  home 
across  the  fields  through  the  glowing  sunshine 
that  he  loved. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  SOUL  OF  CANADA 

It  is  all  very  well  for  men  like  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  to  exclaim,  "My  country  is  the 
world."  I  cannot  lay  claim  to  so  broad  a  hu- 
manitarianism.  Though  I  do  not  see  the  need 
of  hating  any  other  man's  country,  there  is  one 
country  that  means  more  than  any  other  to 
me.  How  could  I  reprove  the  people  of  the 
United  States  for  loving  their  own  country  — 
for  being  jingos,  if  you  will  —  when  I  know 
that  their  home  love  cannot  exceed  mine  ? 

Let  me  confess.  Often  and  often  I  have 
thought  of  writing  something  about  the  love 
of  my  native  land,  but  was  restrained  by  the 
feeling  that  it  was  too  intimate  and  personal 
to  be  exposed  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
public.  Goodness  knows  I  have  gossiped  about 
almost  everything  in  the  most  shameless  way, 
but  there  was  something  about  love  of  the 


196       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

land  that  seemed  too  sacred  to  reveal  even  to 
intimate  friends.  But  now  I  am  emboldened 
to  hang  my  heart  on  my  sleeve  and  talk  to 
those  of  my  readers  both  in  Canada  and  the 
United  States  who  have  felt  the  love  of  the 
land  and  know  what  it  means.  I  have  the 
good  fortune  to  be  living  on  the  farm  on  which 
I  was  born  —  the  farm  which  my  father 
cleared.  Although  I  was  born  too  late  to  take 
a  hand  in  the  work  of  clearing,  I  learned  the 
history  of  every  acre  before  an  open  fireplace 
many  years  ago.  The  history  of  the  clearing 
of  the  land,  the  first  crops,  the  names  and  char- 
acters of  the  horses  and  cows  on  the  place,  are 
so  interwoven  with  my  youthful  recollections 
that  I  seem  to  remember  them  all  as  if  I  had 
taken  part  in  the  battle  with  the  wilderness 
myself,  and  had  shared  in  all  its  triumphs  and 
sorrows.  Something  of  this  farm  struck  a 
tendril  into  my  heart  which  neither  time  nor 
distance  could  break.  It  is  the  only  spot  on 
earth  that  ever  gave  me  the  feeling  of  home. 
Even  after  being  away  for  years  I  have  sat 


THE  SOUL  OF  CANADA  197 

down  in  New  York  or  London,  England,  and 
have  been  as  homesick  for  this  farm  as  a  little 
boy  who  makes  his  first  journey  away  from  his 
mother's  side.  At  any  time  I  could  close  my 
eyes  and  see  the  quiet  fields,  and  I  would 
wonder  what  crops  they  were  sown  to.  At  all 
times  it  was  my  place  of  refuge,  and,  when  I 
finally  returned  to  it,  it  was  with  a  feeling  that 
my  wanderings  had  ended,  and  that  I  could 
settle  down  and  enjoy  life  where  I  belonged. 

At  the  present  time  this  love  of  the  land 
appeals  to  me  as  being  especially  significant. 
The  turmoil  in  the  world  to-day  recalls  to  me 
the  great  purpose  which  moved  my  father  and 
mother  to  undertake  the  task  of  making  a 
home  for  themselves  in  the  wilderness.  They 
wanted  to  establish  a  home  where  their  chil- 
dren and  their  children's  children  could  be 
free.  I  know  the  oppression  and  hardship 
from  which  they  escaped  in  the  old  world,  and 
the  toil  and  hardship  they  endured  in  the  new 
before  their  dream  was  realized.  It  is  high 
time  that  we  who  are  native-born  realized  the 


198        THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

price  that  our  parents  paid  for  the  freedom 
and  liberty  we  have  enjoyed.  The  freedom 
that  they  won  by  their  toil  and  sacrifice  is  a 
heritage  worthy  of  our  sons  who  did  battle 
so  that  it  may  endure. 

There  have  been  times  when  I  thought  that 
the  men  of  my  own  generation  were  escaping 
too  lightly  in  the  work  of  establishing  a  Cana- 
dian nation,  but  I  think  so  no  longer.  This 
new  nation'  was  founded  by  our  freedom-lov- 
ing and  infinitely  patient  fathers,  and  de- 
fended by  our  freeborn  and  heroic  sons.  It  is 
true  that  we  came  too  late  to  take  part  in  the 
pioneer  work,  and  were  too  old  to  take  our 
place  in  the  trenches.  But  on  us  there  rests 
a  heavy  responsibility.  It  is  for  us  to  pierce 
through  the  confusions  and  selfishness  of 
political  strategy  and  establish  the  truth  and 
justice  that  alone  can  make  a  nation  endure. 
We  must  be  true  to  the  great  purpose  of  our 
fathers  and  the  splendid  courage  of  our  sons. 
Here  is  something  that  strikes  deeper  than 
party  politics,  that  demands  the  best  that  is 


THE  SOUL  OF  CANADA  199 

in  us  of  wisdom  and  sanity.  If  we  fail  to  do 
our  part  nobly  the  whole  fabric  of  nationhood 
will  fall.  Love  of  the  land  carries  with  it  a 
responsibility  that  may  try  us  as  sorely  as  the 
wilderness  tried  our  fathers  or  as  the  battle- 
front  tried  our  sons.  And  for  us  there  is  no  es- 
cape. The  future  of  Canada  is  in  our  keeping. 
Whenever  I  read  history,  even  the  history 
of  Canada,  I  feel  like  the  American  soldier 
who  was  wallowing  through  the  mud  after  the 
battle  of  Spottsylvania  Court-house.  Saluting 
his  officer,  he  exclaimed  bitterly: 

"  If  ever  I  love  another  country,  damn  me!" 
History,  as  written,  is  largely  a  record  of 
crimes  and  blunders  that  are  exposed  or  white- 
washed according  to  the  political  bias  of  the 
man  who  is  writing  the  history.  Historians, 
as  a  rule,  are  more  given  to  the  use  of  white- 
wash than  a  political  investigating  committee. 
Fired  by  a  patriotic  desire  to  picture  for  us 
a  country  worth  loving  they  suppress  much, 
glorify  everything  that  seems  worth  glorify- 
ing, and  give  us  something  that  is  no  nearer 


200       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

the  truth  than  the  crayon  portraits  you  see  in 
many  country  parlors.  If  historians  told  the 
simple  truth,  every  nation  with  a  scrap  of 
decency  would  be  trying  to  live  down  its  his- 
tory, just  as  a  convict  tries  to  live  down  his 
past.  And  yet  —  and  yet  I  confess  to  a  love 
of  Canada  that  is  not  simply  a  patriotic  emo- 
tion, but  a  passion  to  which  my  whole  being 
vibrates.  To  me  Canada  is  a  living  soul  —  a 
Presence  that  companions  me  in  the  fields  —  a 
mighty  mother  that  nourished  my  youth  and 
inspires  my  manhood.  Whenever  I  think  of 
Canada  I  remember  Carman's  wonderful  lines : 

"When  I  have  lifted  up  my  heart  to  thee, 
Then  hast  thou  ever  hearkened  and  drawn 
near, 

And  bowed  thy  shining  face  close  over  me, 
Till  I  could  hear  thee  as  the  hill-flowers  hear." 

When  I  strive  to  fathom  the  secret  of  this 
love  I  find  that  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  I 
learned  history,  not  from  books,  but  from  the 
lips  of  the  men  and  women  who  made  Canada 
—  that  I  learned  the  history,  not  of  the  gov- 


THE  SOUL  OF  CANADA  201 

ernment,  but  of  the  people.  The  spirit  that 
broods  over  me  to-day  is  the  same  that 
danced  among  the  shadows  beside  an  open 
fireplace  while  I  listened  to  endless  crooning 
tales  of  the  sufferings  and  hopes  of  the  pion- 
eers. The  Spirit  of  Freedom  that  led  them  into 
the  wilderness  became  my  spirit,  and  their 
dream  of  a  free  Canada  became  a  living  spirit 
that  danced  about  me  in  the  flickering  light  of 
the  flaming  back-logs. 

By  some  trick  of  the  imagination  I  have 
always  thought  of  Canada  as  the  blithe  spirit 
that  haunted  my  childhood.  But  in  my  child- 
hood she  did  not  always  come  in  the  same 
guise.  Sometimes  she  would  come  gliding  out 
of  the  depths  of  the  forest,  a  shy  and  dusky 
sprite  that  would  take  me  by  the  hand  and 
teach  me  the  love  of  flowers  and  birds  and  the 
infinite  mysteries  of  Nature.  Again  she  would 
come  as  a  country  maid,  glowing  with  the  joy 
of  life,  who  would  lead  me  through  the  fields 
where  she  reaped  the  harvest  and  bound  the 
sheaves.    Always  she  walked  in  the  sunlight 


202       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

and  though  her  moods  were  full  of  song  and 
care-free  laughter 

"She  had  the  lonely  calm  and  poise 
Of  life  that  waits  and  wills." 
As  the  years  passed  and  the  burdens  of  life 
began  to  press,  I  lost  the  intimate  touch  with 
the  spirit  of  my  country.  But  always  I  was  con- 
scious that  back  of  the  turmoil  she  was  work- 
ing her  will  and  shaping  the  destiny  of  a  free 
people.    Though  I  might  be  stunned  and  dis- 
heartened by  the  greed  of  commerce  and  the 
clamor  of  politics,  I  could  still  see  dimly  that 
the  spirit  that  companioned  my  youth  was  at 
work  wherever  men  and  women  labored.  And 
her  love  was  not  only  for  those  who  could 
claim  it  as  a  birthright,  but  to  all  who  came 
to  Canada  in  quest  of  freedom.    Creeds  and 
nationalities  and  old  hatreds  were  nothing  to 
her.    No  matter  what  wrongs  or  abuse  of 
power  there  might  be  in  high  places,  the  spirit 
of  Canada  was  nourishing  the  weak,  teaching 
them  the  lesson  of  freedom,  and  moving  to  her 
place  among  the  nations. 


THE  SOUL  OF  CANADA  203 

Then  came  the  day  when  the  war  trumpets 
sounded  and  the  soul  of  Canada  flamed  to  her 
full  stature.  She  heard  the  call  of  the  op- 
pressed and  hurled  her  legions  against  the 
oppressor.  Not  hers 
"To  mix  with  Kings  in  the  low  lust  for  sway, 

Yell  in  the  hunt,  and  share  the  murderous 
prey." 

Nourished  in  freedom  she  gave  battle  for 
freedom.  To-day  I  see  her,  as  I  saw  her  in  the 
time  of  war,  roused  but  unafraid,  and  watch- 
ing with  questioning  eyes  the  sacrifice  of  her 
sons.  Standing  heroic  on  the  soil  that  gave 
her  birth  she  marks  with  glooming  brows  the 
madness  of  the  nations.  This  is  the  hour  of 
her  decision.  Woe  alike  to  those  who  would 
stay  her  hand  and  to  those  who  would  hurry 
her  to  destruction!  Born  of  the  dreams  of 
humble  people  who  toiled  and  served  for  the 
freedom  on  which  she  was  nourished,  Canada 
must  be  forever  free !  As  a  free  nation  within 
the  Empire  she  has  given  lavishly  of  her  best, 
and  as  a  free  nation  she  must  endure ! 


CHAPTER  XXII 

A  LAND  OF  UPPER  BERTHS 

There  are  times  when  a  man  can  be  very 
dense.  During  the  past  year  I  have  crossed  the 
continent  twice  —  stood  by  the  "wine-dark" 
Pacific  and  mused  by  "the  salt,  unplumbed, 
estranging"  Atlantic  —  and  all  through  the 
journey,  both  going  and  coming,  a  piece  of 
news  that  will  interest  all  travellers  was 
"tickling  my  consciousness  with  the  tip  of  its 
tail."  But  not  until  my  last  day's  travel  did 
I  make  the  discovery  that  aroused  both  amuse- 
ment and  wrath.  The  story  of  it  will  now  be 
told  for  the  first  time  because  it  will  do  as  well 
as  anything  else  to  show  a  kind  of  interna- 
tional tie  that  binds  more  securely  than  the 
arrangements  effected  through  diplomatic 
channels.  Business  takes  no  heed  of  bounda- 
ries that  are  defined  for  patriotic  reasons.  It 
recognizes  them  only  when  they  can  be  used 


A  LAND  OF  UPPER  BERTHS     205 

to  its  advantage.  This  incident  will  also  show 
how  enterprise  and  organization  may  defeat 
democracy,  and  that  although  we  may  be 
equal  before  the  law  our  case  may  be  different 
before  a  Pullman  car  porter. 

At  different  times  during  the  past  few  years 
I  have  meditated  writing  an  essay  on  America 

—  including  the  United  States  and  Canada 

—  as  "The  Land  of  Upper  Berths."  No  mat- 
ter how  far  ahead  I  planned  my  trips  and  tried 
to  make  reservations  I  could  never  get  a  lower 
berth  in  a  sleeping-car.  But  there  were  always 
uppers  to  be  had  and  night  after  night  I  clam- 
bered aloft.  Always  trying  to  make  the  best 
of  everything  I  finally  got  so  that  I  rather 
liked  them  on  account  of  the  better  ventila- 
tion, roomier  quarters,  etc. 

From  time  to  time  my  nose  for  news  sniffed 
at  the  prevailing  conditions  and  I  wondered 
vaguely  at  the  type  of  passengers  who  were 
always  so  fortunate  as  to  have  lower  berths. 
Instead  of  being  "The  beautiful,  pampered 
women  of  the  wealthy  bourgeoisie,"  they  were 


206       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

usually  brisk  young  business  men.  Not  only 
did  they  get  the  lower  berths,  but  having 
greater  facilities  for  getting  out  of  bed  in  the 
morning  they  were  always  first  at  the  wash- 
bowls and  took  an  unconscionable  time  at 
their  morning  ablutions;  shaving  expertly 
while  the  train  speeded  around  curves  and 
grooming  themselves  like  bridegrooms,  while 
we  poor  upper-berthers  sat  around,  yawning 
sleepily  and  admiring  the  backs  of  their  silk 
undershirts  and  the  nice  warm  suspenders 
that  cost  as  much  as  an  ordinary  man  used  to 
pay  for  a  suit  of  clothes.  They  primped  and 
preened  and  left  the  rest  of  us  only  time  to 
wash  sketchily  before  reaching  our  destina- 
tion. Then  they  stepped  from  the  train  in  flaw- 
less form  and  ready  to  do  business.  Having 
had  this  experience  over  and  over  again  from 
Toronto  to  Vancouver  and  from  Vancouver  to 
New  York,  I  should  have  guessed  something, 
but  I  was  dense.  That  sleeping-car  feeling 
dulled  my  perceptions. 
Out  in  Calgary  I  was  given  an  explanation 


A  LAND  OF  UPPER  BERTHS  207 

of  the  phenomenon  that  put  me  on  the  wrong 
track  and  lulled  my  sense  of  outrage.  I  had 
protested  to  the  porter  of  one  of  the  palatial 
hotels  because  he  failed  to  get  me  a  lower 
berth  to  Lethbridge. 

"Too  late,"  he  said  cheerfully.  "All  the 
lower  berths  going  both  ways  are  reserved 
two  weeks  ahead." 

"What's  the  reason?" 

"Everybody  is  travelling.  If  I  was  n't  a 
married  man  and  tied  down  I  would  be  travel- 
ling myself." 

Certainly  everybody  did  seem  to  be  travel- 
ling, for  the  hotels  were  crowded  to  the  limit 
and  one  had  to  telegraph  a  week  ahead  to  get 
reservations.  Many  times  even  that  precau- 
tion failed.  Often  I  have  slept  on  a  cot  in  a 
corridor,  and  on  several  occasions  when  the 
corridors  were  full  I  got  a  berth  on  a  cot  in 
the  manager's  office. 

But  the  lower-berth  gentry  never  had  any 
trouble  of  that  kind.  They  would  walk  right 
up  to  the  clerk's  desk  and  register  with  an  air 


208       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

of  authority  utterly  impossible  to  a  man  who 
has  been  sleeping  in  a  top  berth  and  is  looking 
dishevelled  after  dressing  hastily.  And  they 
were  never  disappointed.  While  others  were 
sitting  around  waiting  for  some  one  to  check 
out  so  that  they  could  get  even  an  inside  room 
opening  on  an  airshaft,  the  travelling  princes 
would  be  led  to  the  elevators  by  obsequious 
bell-boys  and  personally  conducted  to  palatial 
rooms  with  a  southern  exposure  and  a  bath. 
Having  a  keen  sense  of  my  own  carelessness 
and  lack  of  foresight,  I  always  humbly  attrib- 
uted my  misfortunes  to  my  own  shiftlessness 
and  mildly  envied  men  who  could  have  their 
minds  so  constantly  fixed  on  sublunary  affairs 
that  they  always  got  the  best  of  everything. 

Finally  I  got  what  I  thought  was  a  possible 
way  out  of  my  troubles  —  at  least  as  far  as 
lower  berths  were  concerned.  Often  I  had 
been  told  that  if  I  came  around  about  an  hour 
before  the  train  started  I  might  get  a  lower 
berth.  Some  one  who  had  a  reservation  might 
fail  to  turn  up  and  if  I  was  on  hand  I  might  be 


A  LAND  OF  UPPER  BERTHS     209 

the  lucky  one  to  get  that  lower  berth.  As  I 
never  put  much  faith  in  the  suggestion  I  did 
not  put  it  to  the  test,  but  when  coming  home 
from  New  York  last  week  I  had  to  come  a  cou- 
ple of  days  sooner  than  I  expected  and  arrived 
at  the  ticket  office  about  an  hour  before  the 
train  started.  The  impossible  happened.  I 
got  a  lower  berth.  I  don't  know  when  I  have 
felt  so  puffed  up.  At  last  I  was  on  terms  of 
equality  with  the  aristocrats  of  the  travelling 
public.  Their  "gallusses  "  might  still  make  a 
finer  showing  than  mine  in  the  dressing-room, 
but  as  I  should  n't  have  to  wait  for  the  porter 
to  bring  me  a  ladder  I  could  probably  beat 
them  to  the  washbowls  in  the  morning.  The 
country  habit  of  early  rising  would  stand  me  in 
good  stead  in  a  competition  of  this  kind.  All 
the  way  up  to  Poughkeepsie  I  felt  the  dignity 
of  being  a  lower-berth  passenger  and  kept 
aloof  from  the  common  herd  of  people  who 
have  to  climb  to  upper  berths.  Being  new  in 
my  class  I  did  not  feel  quite  up  to  interview- 
ing other  lower-berthers  and  discussing  high 


210       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

matters  of  international  relations  with  them. 
Once  during  the  evening  a  Georgian  from 
Atlanta  asked  me  for  information  and  my 
reply  made  him  so  sad  that  perhaps  it  was  as 
well  that  I  kept  to  myself.  He  asked  me  if 
there  were  any  bars  handy  to  the  train  when 
we  should  get  to  Niagara  Falls,  Canada.  I 
was  obliged  to  break  the  news  to  him  that  the 
nearest  bar  would  probably  be  in  Montreal. 
His  distress  was  pitiful.  Like  almost  every 
one  else  in  the  United  States  he  thought  that 
all  Canada  is  wide  open.  And  just  think  of  it! 
He  might  have  taken  the  trip  to  Montreal  just 
as  easily  as  the  trip  to  Toronto.  He  was  holi- 
daying anyway.  But  I  have  wandered  from 
my  story. 

While  crossing  the  lake  from  Lewiston  to 
Toronto  I  had  dinner  and  engaged  in  conver- 
sation with  a  well-set-up  business  man  who 
was  placed  at  the  same  table  with  me.  Being 
full  of  pride  over  that  lower  berth  I  casually 
mentioned  the  wonderful  luck  I  had  had  on 
the  previous  night.  He  smiled  a  superior  smile. 


A  LAND  OF  UPPER  BERTHS     211 

"I  travel  quite  a  bit,"  he  said  loftily,  "but 
I  am  never  troubled  that  way." 

Here  at  last  was  a  bona-fide  lower-berther 
who  might  be  induced  to  enlighten  me. 

"Indeed?"  I  insinuated. 

"You  see  I  am  a  member  of and  it 

attends  to  all  such  matters  as  getting  lower 
berths,  hotel  accommodations,  and  choice 
theatre  seats  for  its  members." 

That  was  a  large  and  illuminating  piece  of 
news  to  be  given  out  in  one  sentence.  I  regis- 
tered polite  interest,  being  careful  not  to  arouse 
his  suspicion  by  any  show  of  eagerness.  As 
I  expected,  he  went  on  and  expanded  his 
theme.  He  did  a  great  deal  of  travelling,  but 
by  being  a  member  of  this  organization  all  he 
needed  to  do  was  to  state  his  requirements  a 
day  in  advance  and  he  would  be  properly 
looked  after  on  the  trains  and  in  the  hotels 
either  in  the  United  States  or  Canada.  They 
always  had  plenty  of  reservations  ahead  so 
that  they  could  look  after  all  travelling  mem- 
bers. They  held  these  reservations  until  an 


212       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

hour  or  so  before  the  trains  started  and  then 
returned  those  they  did  not  require.  He  paid 
an  annual  fee  of  moderate  proportions  which 
he  regarded  as  an  insurance  premium  —  in- 
suring comfort  in  travel.  He  did  not  explain 
how  the  hotels  and  theatres  are  approached  so 
that  rooms  and  seats  may  be  secured,  but  it 
is  managed  all  right.  Not  a  bad  arrangement 
for  the  favorites  of  fortune,  but  how  about  the 
ordinary  public  ?  Are  not  Pullman  cars,  hotels, 
and  theatres  operating  under  licenses  or 
charters  insuring  equal  opportunities  for  all? 
If  not,  why  not  ? 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

EPILOGUE 

After  all,  the  most  delightful  thing  about  a 
visit  to  the  cities  is  the  trip  home.  I  take  no 
joy  in  seeing  sky-scrapers  so  high  that  you 
have  to  swallow  your  Adam's  apple  three 
times  before  you  can  see  to  the  top  of  one. 
And  the  streets  are  crowded  with  abomina- 
tions of  noise  and  speed  that  make  the  foot- 
passenger  from  the  country  get  about  like  a 
whirling  dervish.  And  you  find  the  men  you 
know  all  working  like  mad  for  other  people, 
so  that  they  can  earn  money  with  which  to 
hire  other  people  to  serve  them  with  the  neces- 
saries of  life.  They  get  salaries  from  corpora- 
tions that  enable  them  to  buy  the  products  of 
other  corporations  that  are  all  intent  on  charg- 
ing all  the  traffic  will  bear.  This  sort  of  thing 
is  doubtless  very  businesslike  and  modern  and 
up-to-date,  but  if  I  went  back  to  it  I  should 


2i4       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

feel  very  much  as  if  I  were  being  put  through 
a  sausage-mill  to  appease  the  hunger  of  some 
monster  whose  appetite  I  could  not  under- 
stand. I  am  afraid  my  powers  of  reasoning 
are  not  what  they  used  to  be,  for  although  I 
can  see  the  homely  common  sense  of  raising 
potatoes  and  vegetables  and  apples  and  such- 
like things  for  my  own  use,  I  cannot  figure 
out  where  I  should  be  benefited  by  living  the 
strenuous  life  so  that  I  could  earn  enough  to 
buy  potatoes  and  apples  of  a  poorer  and  some- 
what faded  character  from  some  one  else.  As 
nearly  as  I  can  see,  our  methods  of  handling 
and  distributing  our  food  products  merely 
take  away  from  the  quality  and  add  to  the 
price,  and  no  one  is  benefited  but  those  in- 
comprehensible people  who  devote  their  lives 
to  accumulating  profits  instead  of  to  acquir- 
ing leisure  and  enjoying  life.  The  problem  is 
too  deep  for  me. 

I  thought  I  loved  the  country  before,  but 
this  time  I  see  it  in  a  new  light.  After  I  had 
left  the  last  great  city  and  began  to  watch  the 


EPILOGUE  215 

trees  whirling  past  the  car  windows  I  had  a 
sense  of  companionship  never  felt  before. 
They  seemed  so  much  alive  and  so  serene  and 
friendly  that  I  began  to  quote : 

"Leaf  by  leaf  they  will  befriend  me 
As  with  comrades  going  home." 

The  wild  trees  of  the  forest  —  all  too  scat- 
tered —  were  best.  They  had  an  air  of  inde- 
pendence and  privacy,  as  if  they  might  be  the 
amused  custodians  of  world-old  secrets  that 
they  guarded  even  beyond  the  surprisal  of 
those  whom  they  had  admitted  to  fellowship 

—  after  long  probation.     Even  the  orchards 

—  reared  in  captivity  —  looked  as  if  they  were 
aware  of  their  importance  in  the  scheme  of 
things  and  knew  unfathomable  mysteries. 
After  weeks  of  talk  about  all  manner  of  feverish 
and  unimportant  things,  the  smiling  taciturn- 
ity of  Nature  was  reassuring  and  healing. 
The  clear  air  was  laden  with  the  balm  of 
forgetfulness.  As  I  watched  the  rushing 
moving-picture  show  I  felt  that  it  was  worthy 
the  contemplation  of  a  God,  and  knew  that  I 


216       THE  AFFABLE  STRANGER 

was  privileged  in  being  allowed  a  glimpse  of  it 
and  a  glimmer  of  its  significance.  To  those 
who  love  the  cities  they  may  be  not  simply 
endurable  but  glorious  in  times  of  plenty,  but 
to  those  who  love  the  country,  the  country  is 
the  perfect  home,  rich  in  never-failing  foun- 
tains of  delight  and  inspiration.  Before  many 
months  have  passed  thousands  may  be  forced 
to  choose  between  them. 

My  choice  has  been  already  made  and  I  have 
no  regrets. 


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